Julia Sherrod

Julia Hettie Sayer Sherrod. 92, died Thursday, July 22, at her home at Broadway Plaza Westover Hills in Fort Worth.

The funeral service will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at St. Marys Catholic Church, 612 E. 18th Street, in Odessa, TX, with Father Santiago Udayar officiating. A rosary will be at the Sunset Memorial Gardens and Funeral Home, 6801 Business 20, Odessa, at 6:30 p.m. on Monday night, July 26, 2010. Interment will follow at Sunset Memorial Gardens.

Judy Sherrod, a registered nurse, managed her husbands medical practice in Odessa from 1960 until he retired in 1982. She and her husband, Vincent Alan Sherrod MD, moved to Fort Worth to be with their children and grandchildren in 2004.

Judy was born September 15, 1917, in Black River, New York. She graduated from Black River High School at age 16. Following graduation from the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Albany in 1939, she was awarded a fellowship to St. Louis University where she received her Bachelor of Science Degree in nursing education in June 1942. While she was in school, she managed a hospital and taught nursing at St. Louis University as well as at an African American nursing school.

She was an excellent surgical nurse. One day in 1941, when a young surgeon named Vincent Alan Sherrod collapsed while preparing to do surgery, Judy rushed over to help him. It was the beginning of a lifelong romance. On September 8, 1942, they married.

Judy was the major wage earner while Alan completed a threeyear residency in surgery at Missouri Pacific Hospital. He then joined the U.S. Army and was immediately diagnosed with tuberculosis. Unlike today, TB usually was a death sentence. Judy cared for him during his long convalescence and for the rest of his life. Alan often said his young wifes determination and support kept him alive.

In 1949, Judy and Alan moved to Iraan, TX, at the request of his uncle, Frank Bascom, who worked for the Ohio Oil Company, later the Marathon Oil Company. Physicians were desperately needed in West Texas, and the oil company offered to pay for the move and set them up in practice if they would move their young family west.

West Texas was in the midst of a severalyears drought when the Sherrods arrived. One can only imagine Judys reaction to the sere landscape after growing up in the lush beauty of upstate New York. She and Alan lived through epic dust storms that took the paint off the side of cars and buildings.

At the time, there were no physicians at all for three huge West Texas counties around Iraan. Judy and Alan worked as a team to deliver health care to the thousands of people in an isolated part of Texas. In 1957, they built a clinic in Iraan. Judy successfully wrote grants to establish a WellBaby Clinic in Sheffield, TX, where she and Alan immunized the infants and children in these counties and taught young mothers to feed and care for their children. She also founded the Iraan Public Library. She and Alan were instrumental in establishing the Iraan Hospital.

Judy was a moving force in getting Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops established in Iraan. She was a member of the Iraan Garden Club, whose members were the embodiment of the triumph of hope over adversity, given the challenges of growing anything at all during the drought years. When three of their children were in Catholic boarding schools in Austin and San Antonio, Judy drove 600 miles round trip to see them every weekend.

Judy, as the only other licensed health care practitioner in the area, often functioned as a nurse practitioner because Alan was so often away at the hospital in Fort Stockton or making house calls to remote ranches. While he was away, Judy ran the clinic and triaged the patients, taking the most seriously ill to Fort Stockton when necessary. People instinctively turned to Judy when they needed help. She exuded competence and calm.

Judy and Alan were devout Catholics, driving 30 miles to either McCamey or Rankin to attend Catholic Mass because there was no Catholic Church in Iraan. When they moved from Iraan to Odessa, they donated their clinic building to the Catholic Church, who turned it into St. Francis Catholic Church.

In Odessa, Judy continued to manage Alans medical practice while also volunteering at Catholic Charities and serving as longtime treasurer at St. Marys Catholic Church. She was a member of the Odessa Garden Club, continuing her interest in gardening an interest she passed on to her daughter Katie. She read widely and voraciously and was a published poet. After she and her daughter traveled together to China in the early 1980s, she recorded her impressions of the trip in poetry.

She and Alan traveled extensively, making trips to Ireland, Europe, South America, Russia, Tashkent, New Zealand and Australia, and the Far East. In 1981, Judy accompanied Alan when the Odessa College Jazz Band in which he played saxophone toured in Mexico. Judys purse became famous on that trip. Out of it she produced a needle and thread to repair a band members trousers just before the curtain was to go up at the Mexico City concert a small bottle of pure water for taking pills a small bottle of PeptoBismol and many tissues when allergies attacked the band. Judy was always prepared.

Judy and Alan were members of the Odessa Country Club, and their sons Daniel and Michael were Crystal Ball escorts. Judy was preceded in death by her husband.

Judy is survived by her children, Dan Sherrod of Richardson and his wife Patricia Dr. Peter Sherrod of Plano Katie Sherrod of Fort Worth, and her husband, the Rev. Gayland Pool and Michael Sherrod of Fort Worth and his wife, Dr. Melissa McIntire Sherrod nine grandchildren and five great grandchildren. She is also
survived by two brothers, Colin and William Sayer, and a sister, Dorothy Sayer Foltz.

Memorials may be made to Catholic Charities, 2500 Andrews Highway, Odessa, TX, 79761 or online at http:www.catholiccharitiesodessatx.org

Service

Funeral Service

St. Marys Catholic Church
612 East 18th Street
Odessa, TX  79761
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
10:00 AM

Rosary

Sunset Memorial Chapel
6801 E. Business 20
Odessa, TX  79762
Monday, July 26, 2010
6:30 PM

Cemetery

Sunset Memorial Gardens
6801 E. Business 20
Odessa, TX  79762

Memorial Contributions

2500 Andrews Highway
Odessa, TX  79761