Shirley Darlene Fielder, a Brownwood resident for 45 years, died on Thursday, January 11, in Bryan, Texas. She was born on March 27, 1940, to Frank and Gracie Luna, who never sufficiently explained why they named her Shirley but called her Darlene. She spent the rest of her life grumbling at anyone who dared to call her Shirley.

Darlene was born in Jayton, Texas, but moved at a young age to Abilene, Texas. She graduated from Abilene High School in 1958, part of the first class who spent their entire high school years at the “new” campus. A few weeks after her graduation, she married Bill Fielder, a boy she had met several years earlier when he was working at what is now Larry’s Better Burger.

Darlene and Bill lived in Abilene for the next fourteen years, adding Tammy, Tanya, and Traci to the family in that time. While Bill was working his way from shoe salesman to assistant manager at the Abilene Montgomery Ward’s, Darlene poured her big heart into her daughters and husband: cooking; cleaning; sewing; singing silly songs; sharing family anecdotes; reading bedtime stories; tending to scraped knees and sore throats and the occasional emergency room visit.

Darlene was the one who got the Sunday pot roast into the oven every week at the same time she was getting all three girls decked out in their Sunday best and out the door in time to pick up relatives or friends on the way to Sunday school-which she was often teaching. She checked homework and volunteered for the PTA and made Easter dresses and everyday play clothes and stretched the food budget by finding innovative (but not always popular) ways to prepare ground meat and canned Treet.

In 1972, Bill was promoted to manager of the Montgomery Ward’s store in Brownwood, a town where they knew no one but would call home for the next 45 years. An extrovert’s extrovert, Bill loved his new role and chance to get involved in the Chamber of Commerce and Lion’s Club, while Darlene struggled with unfamiliar obligations in an unfamiliar town and with leaving behind her parents and friends she had known since childhood. But she soon rose to the challenge, accompanying Bill to evening banquets and embracing his employees and their families in any way she could show her care and concern.

Austin Avenue Church of Christ became a second home for the family for the next four decades. Darlene taught Sunday school classes, helped with baby showers and weddings, made mission trips, supported fundraisers, supplied food for countless potlucks, and took meals to celebrate new babies or mourn with those facing illness or loss. She made sure her daughters were at every Bible study and youth group event and supported her husband throughout his thirty years of service as an elder. And she cultivated deep friendships and offered words of encouragement and smiles of welcome to everyone she encountered.

To ensure that her daughters would get the college education she never had, Darlene began working for the Brownwood Independent School District in 1978. She spent the next two decades working in various roles at the middle school and high school-from lunchroom lady to counselor’s aide to registrar and main office receptionist. When she retired from the school district, she almost immediately signed up to train as a CASA volunteer so that she could continue to find ways to influence young lives.

In 1991, Bailee made Darlene a Nana-which was probably her all-time favorite role in life. Tyler, Briana, J.T., Kinsey, William, and Jonathan came along in quick succession, and Darlene was there in the first weeks of their lives, bathing them in love and wrapping them in pure joy. She found ways to make each of them feel special as they grew, sending cards and baking special desserts and buying wrapping paper and candy and trinkets for school fundraisers. Nana happily showed up for dance performances, basketball and soccer games, and choir and band concerts-she even attended high school graduations for seven straight years.

When Bill began his long descent into Alzheimer’s, Darlene became his caregiver and his champion-unfamiliar roles for both of them. Even as she battled breast cancer and the effects of surgery and chemotherapy and radiation, she made sure Bill had what he needed, often rising earlier than she preferred to make his breakfast and keep him company. When she could no longer care for him at home, she visited him almost every day, eating meals with him and playing dominoes with him and just sitting with him while he watched TV. Even when Bill had lost all his words, his face lit up with joy every time he saw his beloved Darlene.

But those years of caregiving took a toll, and it wasn’t long after Bill’s death in 2015 before Darlene also needed more assistance. In 2017 she moved from her beloved Brownwood to Bryan, where she could be closer to Traci and her family. Over the next six and a half years, Darlene weathered broken bones, a brain bleed, heart issues, a global pandemic, and multiple strokes and infections while losing more and more of her physical and cognitive abilities. But she never lost her sense of humor or her sweet disposition. Even after strokes had taken much of her physical ability, she still greeted visitors and caretakers with a lopsided smile, guaranteed to brighten anyone’s day. Darlene’s resilience amazed her caregivers, and she remained a favorite of the staff at Hudson Creek Alzheimer’s Special Care Center and the caregivers of Enhabit Hospice Care in Bryan.

Darlene was preceded in death by Bill, her husband of 57 years; her parents, Grace and Frank Luna; her brothers, Odell and Joe; and her sister, Louise. She is survived by three daughters and sons-in-law-Tammy and Michael Ditmore, Tanya and Thomas Graham, and Traci and Ron Hambric-seven grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren, with a sixth expected to arrive very soon.

She will be missed by so many. But her family is grateful that she is now resting safe in the arms of Jesus.

The family will receive friends at the funeral home on Sunday evening from 5:00 until 7:00. Darlene’s funeral service will be held at 11:00 AM, Monday, January 15, 2024, in the Heartland Funeral Home Chapel. A private family interment will follow in Eastlawn Memorial Park.

Condolences, memories, and tributes can be offered to the Fielder family online at heartlandfuneralhome.com