Lois Qualls, daughter of Wilton Lois and Hazel Dell (Taylor) Humphres, died at her home in Fulton, Mississippi. Her life was a tapestry of love, loss, and laughter.
Lois was born in Marietta, Mississippi on January 23, 1939. She attended schools in Fulton. After exchanging letters with Roosevelt Wilson Dill for a year, the two married November 23, 1955. During Roosevelt’s military service the Dills lived in California and Mississippi. Later they moved north and settled in Zion, Illinois. Together they raised four children: Karl Mitchell, Sandra Kay, Randall Wade and Belinda Gay. Lois worked in the engine plant for American Motors Corporation in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In January 1977, Lois’ husband of twenty-two years suffered a fatal heart attack.
In 1982 Lois married Billy Qualls. Together they traveled the country, from Wisconsin Dells to Sea World to Washington, D.C. After her mother’s death Lois moved with her husband and her father, Wilton, from Zion, Illinois to Verona, Mississippi. Lois cared for her father at home for many years before his passing.
After nearly three decades of love, Lois and Bill were separated by his death in Florida in 2009.
Whether tending dainty pink and purple impatiens, growing luscious red tomatoes, or knitting together yarns in the colors of the rainbow, Lois filled her life with color.
Lois loved her cameras and used them well, making sure to always print doubles. She enjoyed thousands of hours knitting and crocheting blankets, footies, dishcloths, and dolls for her children, grandchildren, and friends. She read romance novels or, in her words, “love books” and checked them out fifty at a time from Fulton’s library. She loved Elvis Presley.
Those who remain to honor her memory are her children Sandra Kay Church (Tim), Randy Wade (Diane) Dill, and Belinda Gay (Brian) Sullivan; her grandchildren, Tammy Lynette Freeman (Steve) Peacy, Tony Lee (Danielle) Freeman, Teri Kay (Shawn) Smith, Daniel Lee Dill, Katherine Maeve Sullivan and Sara Lauren Sullivan; and her great-grandchildren Jason Timothy Bloom, Emma Kay Bloom, Joshua Lee Freeman, Kayleigh Brianne Smith, Keagan Raymond Peacy, Amanda Faith Smith and Skylar Clayton-Lee Smith; and many cousins, uncles, and aunts.
She is now reunited with her parents, Wilton and Hazel, by Roosevelt and their son Karl, by her husband Bill and his mother Lucille, and by her beloved puppies Prince, Princess, Bobby, Stormy, L’il Bit, and Misty.
