Page 6 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Winter 2020- Online Magazine

So Happy

Together

for 77 77 Years

Berry and Thelma Cox

By Jane Bromley

efore the love story began, better than
the small Panhandle town of others during
BLefors and the even smaller the Great
settlement of Lonestar (basically Depression,
a one-room schoolhouse) were and Berry
the birthplaces of two remarkable thrived.
individuals. Berry Cox, Jr. was the
only child of a young prosperous Just a few
couple. Berry, Sr. was a property miles away,
manager for the Bivins Company. in the town
They even lived in a big home in of Sunray,
Amarillo on NE 24th Street, where little Thelma
they had two maids, and “Junior” Popplewell
was chauffeured to school in a grew up. She But one of the bright spots in her
Cadillac limousine. had a “wonderful” childhood, but it life was a young man she had met
was cut short when her father passed
His life changed dramatically at away. Thelma was 13. Barely over at the movie theater when she was
age 7, when his parents divorced, that loss, her mother died just two 14. Berry Cox was a “real nice” farm
and little Berry was shipped off to years later. WWII was raging, and boy, and the teenagers hit it off right
live with his maternal grandparents Thelma’s only brother was serving away. Thelma enjoyed visits to the
on their farm near Sunray. The his country in Iwo Jima. He wasn’t Dooley farm where Berry taught her
boy adapted able to come to drive the tractor. Berry thought
to farm life home for the “Thelma was the most beautiful girl
and found he funeral. I’d ever seen in my life. I still do.”
enjoyed it. His “My mother just loved him,” Thelma
grandparents With no remembers. Dates to the movies, the
had 12 children family nearby, skating rink, and the soda fountain
of their own, 15-year-old solidified their feelings for each
the youngest Thelma was other. On Feb. 21, 1944, when Thelma
just a little older forced to get a was just 16, and Berry was 18, they
than Berry. job and move tied the knot. “But Berry had to work
Farm families into a small that night at the Diamond Shamrock
seemed to fare apartment. Oil Refinery.”

6 Amarillo Senior Link