Freestone County, Texas
Obits



OA Online
Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Gladys Mae Cowart Wood
Fairfield 

Gladys Mae Cowart Wood, 93, of Fairfield, passed away Friday, March 4, 2005, in 
Fairfield.

Gladys was born in Mineloa March 24, 1911. She was one of four children born to 
J.B. and Ann Cowart. Gladys left home at 18 to work for Western Union. During 
her tenure at Western Union, she led an exciting life, traveling throughout 
East Texas and Louisiana. It was on one of her business trips that she met her 
future husband, Wirt Wood. They married in Lufkin in 1936. In 1938, they moved 
to Fairfield and opened Wood Drug on the square. After a successful business 
career, they sold their drug store to Warren Awalt in 1963. After Gladys’s 
husband died in 1988, she chose to remain in Fairfield to enjoy the people and 
the town that had nurtured them through good and bad times.

Gladys’ family history is deeply rooted in Texas. She is the great-great-
granddaughter of Martin Varner, on the original 300 who followed Stephen F. 
Austin to East Texas. In a time when men dominated business, politics and 
community, Gladys earned the respect of men and women in Fairfield as a strong, 
independent and free thinker. She joined the Eastern Star in 1942 and served as 
worthy matron from 1946 through 1947 and again from 1964 through 1965. She 
remained active in Eastern Star, while her health permitted and recently 
received her 60th year pin.

Gladys had no children but was blessed with many loving nieces and nephews. She 
is survived by her brother, J.C. Cowart of Mineola; nephews, Robert Wood of 
Woodville, and Pete Donohoe of Mineola; nieces, Betty Dale of Odessa; and her 
late husband’s sister-in-laws, Mrs. Marvin Wood, Mrs. Ernie Wood and Mary 
Francis Lentz.

Services were Monday, March 7, at Capps Memorial Chapel with the Rev. Eston 
Turner officiating. Burial was at Fairfield Cemetery. Arrangements are by Capps 
Memorial Funeral Home of Fairfield.

Memorial should be sent to Freestone County Senior Services, Eastern Star or 
First United Methodist Church.

God rest her soul.