In Loving Memory Of Marie Sawyer
Jan. 6, 1941 ~ Feb. 10, 2025
Marie Sawyer was born in Littlefield, Texas on January 6, 1941 to Joe & Hattie Mae Brandstatt and passed from this earth on February 10, 2025 in Lubbock, Texas. Marie graduated from Amherst High School in 1959. She was a lifelong member of the Amherst Methodist Church.
Marie married Charlie Murrell Sawyer on February 27, 1959, in the Methodist Church in Amherst. Charlie and Marie had three children in 39 months, Clinton, LaReshia and Larry. In November of 1959, Charlie was drafted in the US Army and they were stationed at Fort Eustice, Virginia. In August of 1961 he received his discharge, and they returned to Amherst to continue his wheat harvest business. Marie joined in on the harvest and could drive a truck with a combine on the bed pulling the header across the central United States. She could drive anything they owned and had a CDL license for many of those years. And of course she was head cook and bottle washer at the same time. Marie made many lifelong friends on this harvest trail who still remain some of our closest friends. It was this raising that produced the three adults you know today and we would not trade that upbringing for anything. In her final hours we thanked her for raising us right.
In the winter she worked in the office at the cotton gins in Amherst for over 35 years. They were 12 hour days during ginning season. There she worked with two of her best friends and that made it more than just a job to her.
The Sawyer household was frequented by many of her children's friends over the years. There were lots of fun times at the Brandstatt farm, in the basement playing pool, and those slumber parties. There was always enough food for any of our friends that happened to be there at meal-time. She helped with many a school party and events and was even tough enough to take Larry's 15 graduating seniors on their senior trip with another mom to New Braunfels. The rough ones were all scared of her so it worked out fine.
The Amherst Celebration was a special event in her life. It always ended up a family reunion and she looked forward to it for months. Watering her yard to make sure it was green. Getting the flower beds clean and also spraying the yard multiple times for mosquitos. She loved working in her yard once she quit the harvest trail. She would spend most of the day outside doing something around the house. One year not that long ago, she dug up her entire flower beds with a shovel and added new fertile soil to them.
Marie loved to travel just as her mom and Mama did. After her retirement from harvesting, she and her sister Betty took road trips all over the United States. Avoiding all the interstates they could. Stopping and having picnics along the way. They went everywhere from Washington DC on the Forth of July one year to the Red Wood Forests with no hotel reservations. They loved hunting seashells on the coast of Texas and went there multiple times.
She loved as many hand crafts as you can think of, quilting, leather tooling, sewing, crocheting, tatting, painting and canning from the garden. Some talents passed on from her mom and Mama and others self-taught. If she wanted to do it, she figured out how. One time she wanted to make a bathroom bigger, Charlie and Glynn told her if she wanted it she could do it herself, so she sledge hammered the wall and proceeded to do it herself. So needless to say, she got a bigger bathroom.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Charlie Murrell Sawyer; her father and mother Joe and Hattie Brandstatt; and both of her siblings, Betty Cornelius and Glynn Brandstatt.
She is survived by her three children, Clinton Sawyer and wife, Connie of Amherst, LaReshia Bragg and husband, Mike of Dalhart, and Larry Sawyer and wife, Jennifer of Amherst; six grandchildren, Kateland Rogers and husband, Dakota of Sudan, Jarrod Sawyer and wife, Brandy of Amarillo, Ashton and husband, Dex of Sudan, Gavin Sawyer and wife, Karmen of Luke Airforce Base in Glendale, Arizona, Cobey Sawyer of Midland, Texas and Noah Sawyer of Amherst; seven great grandchildren and one on the way, Kambrin Sawyer, Charlie Sawyer, Decklan Rogers, Kadence Rogers, Lainey Sawyer, Ira Baker, Nakishka Sawyer, Baby Boy Sawyer, 11 nieces and nephews and one really lonely and confused dachshund, Lucy.
Graveside Services for Marie Sawyer will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Monday, February 17, 2025, at Fairlawn Cemetery in Amherst, Texas. Memorial Services will follow at 1:00 p.m. at Amherst Methodist Church. A visitation will be held from 2:00 until 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 16, 2025, at Hillcrest Funeral Home. Arrangements are under the personal care of Hillcrest Funeral Home in Littlefield, Texas.