Lenore Cain Waldrop

Lenore Waldrop, devoted mother, wife, grandmother, and steadfast follower of Jesus Christ entered into the presence of her Savior on March 3. She was 98. Following a private graveside service, a celebration of her life will be held Friday, March 8 at 1 p.m. in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church of Abilene with Dr. Phil Christopher officiating. A reception at Abilene Country Club will follow the service.  Services are under the direction of The Hamil Family Funeral Home, 6449 Buffalo Gap Road, Abilene.

Mary Lenore Cain was born November 13, 1920 in San Antonio, Texas. She was the second child of Gladys Pulliam and Charles Cain. She moved to Uvalde in 1931 with her mother and brothers who settled at the Pulliam Ranch on the east bank of the Nueces River. Lenore followed the tradition of the women in her family and graduated from Baylor in 1941. At Baylor, she met Sam Waldrop and they married April 8, 1944. Their early years were spent in San Francisco and Salt Lake City where Sam served in the FBI. Following the war, they moved to Abilene where Sam joined his dad at Waldrop’s Furniture Store and, together they raised their family.

Lenore’s life was an example to her family and to many of living in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. We learned many things from her, more through her actions than her words, including:

Be Grateful. (Romans 8:28,1 Thessalonians 5:16) Every prayer she prayed began with gratitude. She knew the source of every blessing. She also learned to thank God for the hard places. It was in the hard places that her character was refined.

Don’t worry. Pray about it. (Philippians 4:6) Her daily prayers for her family, her friends, her church, and her nation led to her turning worries over to God (“Worrying never accomplishes anything”).

Treasure your friends. (Proverbs 17:7) She kept up with her friends, regularly reaching out to them even when they moved away or when she was limited by a lack of mobility. Along with her family, her friends were her greatest riches and she delighted in their lives.

Persevere. “Never give up” was not so much what she said but how she lived. From perfecting her tennis lob to working daily to maintain mobility, she taught us to accept limitations but continue striving to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

She was preceded in death by her husband Sam Waldrop. Lenore’s legacy lives on in her children: son, David Waldrop of Abilene; daughters, Gladys Kolenovsky and her husband Bobby of Dallas, Nancy Turner and her husband Jay, also of Dallas; six grandchildren, Megan Douglass and her husband Ben, Sam Turner and his wife Robin, Keni Fondren and her husband Chase, David Turner, Caroline Reeder and her husband Trent, and Catherine Crawford; and five great-grandchildren.

We want to thank the women who served our mom over her last years, most recently Andrea Portillo, Erma Jacques, Dahlia Bermea, and Olga Gaona. These women, along with mom’s primary physicians Rae Ann Hamilton, MD and Samantha Goodman, MD, allowed mother to remain fruitful and in service to her Lord.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made in Lenore’s name to City Light Community Ministries of First Baptist Church of Abilene, a downtown ministry transforming lives and a place where she served with joy, or to the Sam and Lenore Waldrop Legacy Scholarship benefitting the former patients of Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.