Lois Jean Childers Rutherford Beaty

Lois was born on August 20, 1939, to Edie & Bud Childers. She lived a charmed life playing with her many aunts, uncles, and cousins at Mom’s house in Hillsboro, and was soon joined by a little brother, Larry. They enjoyed pulling each other in a wagon and chasing the caboose of the train that ran behind the house, yelling “flare, flare” to the conductor in hopes he would throw them one. During the war, the family moved to South Carolina so that Bud could help the war effort by painting airplanes. Lois Jean generously used her fifth birthday candles to wish for an end to the war, and on May 9, 1945, Allied victory was declared in Europe. You’re welcome!

Lois Jean was a lifetime vegetarian and was known to survive happily by licking peanut butter off a spoon while she played. She also convinced her baby sister, Penny, to join the vegetarian movement. Lois Jean often spent her allowance on comic books and considered them, along with a tomato sandwich and Pepsi, her personal heaven.

Lois Jean married Robert Rutherford in 1961, and together they attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. They had three children, Ty, Lisa, and Angi, before later divorcing.

Lois earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology in 1984 and was soon swept off her feet by a Texan, Jake Beaty. They split their time between West Columbia and Litchfield, where Lois worked at Echelon Hydraulic. She and Jake were married in 1996, shortly before Jake’s passing.

Lois found love one last time with Dave Hearn and enjoyed a decade of traveling together and eating more tomato sandwiches from Dave’s vegetable garden, until Dave’s passing in 2019.

Lois was happy to live out her days with her constant companion, her little dog, Gigi. She was able to do so with the help of her caregiver, Dezirae, and her kind neighbors, Kathy & Randy Boden. She had a standing poker game and enjoyed taking Myrna’s and Mary Lou’s money when she was on a heater.

She is already terribly missed by her friends, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, her surviving sister, Penny, sister-in-law Beverly, and many nieces and nephews.

Those who knew Lois will remember her kindness, her sense of humor, and her lifelong habit of rooting for the underdog.

No public services are planned. 

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