The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

Margaret Louviere

Special to The Record

My sister Jimmie Mosier Huff was born on June 15, 1925 in Vinton, Louisiana. After our years in Vinton we moved to Orangefield. There we attended the old Winfree school. We transferred to Orangefield school when we reached the seventh grade. When Jimmie started attending Orangefield she met Tommy Huff who would become the love of her life. Tommy died in 2006, they had been married 59 years and neither of them had ever dated anyone else.

Jimmie graduated from Orangefield in 1942 and went to college at the College of Marshall in Marshall, Texas. While she was there the college became East Texas Baptist College. It is now East Texas Baptist University.

Tommy joined the Army and went to Pacific in WWII. Jimmie finished college while he was gone and continued to live in Marshall. She had gotten a degree in business so she was able to work at the Marshall News Messenger, the local newspaper.

When Tommy came home, he reentered college and got his degree in education. After he finished college they move back home to Orange and he started teaching at West Orange. He would go on to become elementary principal, high school principal, and superintendent at West Orange. He was superintendent when the West Orange and Orange schools merged. When Tommy retired he was superintendent at Port Neches.

Jimmie worked in Orange at the old Sabine Supply Company in the building that later became Lamar in Orange. She also worked at the now gone Ramsey-Kantz Steel Works on Western Ave in West Orange.

In 1960 she quit work to become a full time mother and wife. She and Tommy had become the parents of Charles Thomas Huff. Charlie, as he is known, is their only child.

Over the years Jimmie worked in many volunteer organizations. The majority of her time was done in the Home Demonstration clubs in Orange and Jefferson Counties. Several times she had her crafts entered in the South Texas State Fair.

She could do anything that needed to be done with a needle and thread. She was an accomplished seamstress and could do wonders with a sewing machine. Jimmie especially enjoyed making craft items for her family.

In their retirement years she and Tommy traveled for years with the Retired Christian Builders. This is a volunteer group that travels all over the country building churches.

She was devout in her Baptist faith. Jimmy was active in her church until Tommy’s health declined. At the time of Tommy’s death her health had also begun to decline. She died earlier this year at the Meadows nursing home.

I miss her and the closeness we shared. She was a person that enjoyed humor. The biggest joke in our family was that she thought she was the only one that could make cornbread dressing at the holidays.

She also leaves behind Charlie and his wife Grace, and all the members of her extended family of nieces and nephews.