Lettie Faye Oakley left us for Heaven on April 4, 2025, to be with Jesus. She had just turned 101 on March 2, 2025. Her husband, as well as some of her family members and friends were awaiting her there.

Lettie was just a teenager when she left her farm life in Iowa for southern California. She had never been so far from home, but her Aunt Fay asked her to come help care for a niece who was born with special needs. It was there in southern California, a short while later, that Lettie met her future husband, Bob Oakley. Her aunt sneakily asked Lettie to cook dinner for a friend who was coming over, and then disappeared, leaving her alone to eat with her mystery guest, Bob.

The couple married in a private ceremony in June 1941, as World War II loomed on the horizon. The minister and his wife were the only other people present as Bob and Lettie made their vows in the minister’s home. Lettie clutched a bouquet of Cécile Brünner roses. Bob had just completed his time of service with the Navy, but rejoined the military after war broke out that December. He went to work on a classified secret project in Europe that Lettie discovered years later to be aircraft detection radar.

Bob and Lettie were married 47 years before his death from cancer in 1988. They had four children together and lived in Kneeland since the late 1940s. They had already lived in San Diego, Sacramento, and Pennsylvania, but Lettie said that after arriving in Humboldt County, she never wanted to live anywhere else. They attended Eureka First Baptist Church in those early years, and then that church supported the Oakleys’ effort to start a church on Kneeland Mountain. Bob and Lettie were a big part of the community of Kneeland, even suggesting the name “Greenwood Heights Drive,” that is still in use today. Their church, Greenwood Heights Chapel, was a vibrant part of the community for many years, and they made many close friends. When the chapel closed, they became involved in Church of the Highlands, Eureka, where they helped to teach Sunday School before Bob’s passing. Later in her life, Lettie attended Grace Baptist Church in Eureka, which she loved very much. She also continued well into her nineties to be involved from home in occasional projects for Eureka First Baptist Church, preparing crafts for Sunday School classes, helping to prepare women’s retreat materials, and packing shoeboxes for needy children through Operation Christmas Child.

Lettie counted her family as one of her biggest blessings from God. in addition to her four children and their spouses, she deeply loved her 77 grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren—some she had only seen in pictures but still made her smile. She has spent much of her life sewing, doing needlework, growing flowers, cooking amazing meals, and caring for animals and children. Even until the end, she loved to laugh, and to hear and sing songs about Jesus and heaven. She was known for her loving kindness, devotion, gratitude, and grace. She said her only secret for living so long was that God just hadn’t called her home yet!

Some of her family and friends plan to gather at Eureka First Baptist Church Fellowship Hall, Alley Entrance, on May 3, 2025, at 11:00 AM for an informal celebration of her life. We want to eat some of her favorite foods, tell stories as we remember them, and have a hymn sing of the songs she loved. The church is located at 422 Del Norte Street in Eureka, CA.

Lettie is buried next to Bob in Sunrise Cemetery in Fortuna. Arrangements were handled by Goble’s Mortuary of Fortuna. Thank you to both organizations for your kind service.

Momma loved studying her Bible, and one of the verses that she is now living out in Heaven is the fulfillment of I Corinthians 2:9, “But as it is written, ‘Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.’” Enjoy, precious Momma!