Florine Yates Stabler's Obituary
It is with deeply heavy hearts that we must announce that Florine Yates Stabler passed away on Monday, September 9, 2024, at the age of 89. She passed away in her home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. She was a devoted and involved mother and grandmother, known lovingly as “Mamaw.”
She was born as Florine Yates to Charlie Yates and Tennie Smith Yates on July 10, 1935, in Hartman, Arkansas. Florine grew up in Hartman with her six siblings: Loyd, Edgar, Charlene, Dwight, Doyle, and Marie. She moved to Tulsa in the 1950’s, where she met and married John L. Stabler in 1955. Florine and John went on to have three children: Sherry was born in 1958, John in 1967, and Kenny in 1968. The couple also ran a successful business together. Florine’s Lettering did all the sewing and mending for sports teams in Oklahoma and Arkansas for many years including Oral Roberts University, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, University of Tulsa, Connors State College, nearly every high school in the state of Oklahoma, and many high schools and colleges across Arkansas.
Florine had many talents - she was an exceptional painter and her paintings hung in her home for her children and grandchildren to admire and covet. She loved making cakes for family birthdays and pies for holiday gatherings. She was a skilled bowler and a notoriously bad skier, once described by her son as the “world’s worst snow skier.” She was a devoted matriarch and hostess who always brought the family together for Christmas and Easter and any other holiday where she could squeeze everyone into the living room. She was an active and present Mamaw to her grandchildren and later to her great grandchildren. She always had a story to share and was an avid user of idioms lost to time.
Florine touched the lives of many with her kindness and warmth. She will be forever missed and remembered fondly now that she is, as she would’ve said, “off in the wild blue yonder.”
Florine was preceded in death by her parents Charlie and Tennie, her husband John whom she was married to for fifty years before his passing, her brothers Loyd, Edgar, Dwight and Doyle, and her sister Charlene. She is survived by her daughter Sherry and son-in-law Tim, her sons John and Kenny, her younger sister Marie, her grandchildren Renae, Michaela, Aiden, and Dakota, and her great grandchildren Brandon, Brynlea, Brixon, Devyn, and Lane.
A public visitation will be held on Sunday, September 15, 2024, from 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM, at Floral Haven Funeral Home: 6500 S 129th E Ave, Broken Arrow, OK 74012.
Anyone wishing to send flowers may do so by calling Floral Designs by Floral Haven at (918) 459-1525 or by ordering from our website. Any independent florists may deliver flowers directly to Floral Haven Funeral Home by 12:00 PM on September 15, 2024, in order for them to be set out and properly displayed in a timely manner for Florine's visitation.
A graveside service to honor the life of Florine will be held at 11:00 AM on Monday, September 16, 2024, at Floral Haven Memorial Gardens in the Masonic Garden, located at: 6500 S 129th E Ave, Broken Arrow, OK 74012, with family friend Evan Tipton officiating.
Arrangements entrusted to Floral Haven Funeral Home.
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