Martha (Missie) Lanham
January 12, 1936
April 11, 2025
Missie Lanham was born Martha Gough Brooks on January 12, 1936 to Marcellus Smith “Sallie” Brooks and Eldon Claire Gough Brooks in Waco, Texas. She died on April 11, 2025 in Temple, Texas.
She attended Christian College, Southern Methodist University, and Baylor University where she received her undergraduate degree in Education. She received her Master’s Degree from the University of Texas in Austin in Special Education.
Wearing a mink trimmed swimsuit, Missie met her husband-to-be, Samuel Willis Tucker (Sam) Lanham, III, June 23, 1955 poolside at Ridgeway Country Club in Waco. He drove her home that day, and as she walked up the sidewalk to her family’s home, she remembered considering, “I think I may have just met the man I’m going to marry.” On June 8, 1956, she was proven correct!
Missie and Sam have three children, born during their years in Waco – Samuel W. T. (Sam) Lanham, IV, Carol Brooks Lanham (Brooks) McCorcle, and Eugenia Claire Lanham (Claire) Hartman. They made several moves with their brood, across Texas, from Waco to Austin, to Galveston, to Houston, and to Fredericksburg. While these moves were joint decisions, it was Sam’s call to the ministry and career changes that drove them. Missie was an enthusiastic partner and supporter for Sam, but also was the one who made things happen, so that her family’s needs were cared for. Indeed, she was the glue, empowering the various expressions of ministry Sam undertook and joining him in ways that gave them both great joy.
Missie was passionate about teaching, across all age groups, and she loved to learn, especially about her students, their families, their challenges and how she could help make their lives better. Missie taught in various school districts in Texas: Waco, Austin, Galveston, Houston, and Fredericksburg. She applied her background in Special Education toward students who needed extra help, like those who were homebound or those who had special learning needs. She taught so much more than just academic subjects. With compassion, she taught life skills to pregnant teens and consoled the families whose children were terminally ill. With joy, she celebrated students’ milestones. She’d bring them cupcakes and balloons with streamers. Whatever the need, Missie would find it and fill it ten times over.
Missie was a person of great creativity and adaptability. She and Sam created the “Shout of Joy” jewelry business when they lived in Houston, selling hand-crafted pendants made in the shop in their den. She loved smocking and made many smocked dresses for her granddaughters. She and Sam enjoyed teaching classes during creativity conferences at Mo-Ranch, a Presbyterian camp in the Texas Hill Country, in the summers and at Laity Lodge, also in the Hill Country. Their classes filled early and easily, because they weren’t just teaching jewelry-making, embroidery or smocking, they were sharing life, in fellowship with other Christians.
Mostly, Missie was a faith-filled woman whose unconditional love, acceptance, curiosity and compassion poured out of her like water from a fire hydrant! She had a gift of touching hearts and lives of those she met, so naturally, that she didn’t even know she was doing it. It was just who she was. She loved her family well and had a great sense of humor. She, with Sam, hosted her grandchildren in the summers and had great adventures with them – climbing Enchanted Rock, painting with them, showing them how to make dolls out of pantyhose, introducing them to llamas, and pushing them in the yellow swing, while reciting her favorite poem, “The Swing,” by Robert Louis Stevenson. These experiences, plus many more, inspired a homemade deck of cards, given to her on her 80th birthday, entitled “80 Things We Love about Missie Mom.” Her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren all contributed. A new card was added each year, until her last birthday, at 89, and they were never at a loss to add one more card, one more “thing we love about Missie Mom.”
She was preceded in death by her husband and true love Sam, by her parents, and by her brother, Joe Brooks and his wife Joyce.
Missie is survived by her son and daughter-in-law Sam and Cathey Lanham of Lubbock TX, by her daughter and son-in-law Brooks and Mick McCorcle of Fredericksburg TX, and by her daughter and son-in-law Claire and Bill Hartman of Salado TX. Also, 10 grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren, all of whom received the great gift of loving and being loved by Missie Mom! Her remains will be interred with her husband Sam’s in a private worship ceremony at Oakwood Cemetery in Waco TX.
Memorials can be made to: Salado Presbyterian Church or the church of your choice, American Cancer Society/breast cancer awareness, St. Jude’s, Broecker Funeral Home plant a tree.