Birth date: Aug 17, 1931 Death date: Dec 29, 2020
LoReece Eslinger was born August 17, 1931 and went home to heaven on December 29, 2020. She was born in Tulsa, raised a family in Stillwater, and spent retirement years in Sand Springs. She attended Bethany Peniel College (now Sou Read Obituary
Mom Eslinger, a.k.a Margie LoReece Eslinger
You made it easy for me to call you mom!
Your slow nature paved the way for me. David never once chided me for my slowness. He understood that some people are just made that way and it never fazed him.
Your caring ways remained until the end. The way that you helped me the first week after our boys were born will never be forgotten! It was so appreciated! I was having so much trouble resting when I heard every little squirm of my boy. You said, “let me take him into the living room with me & when I can not quiet him, I will wake you to feed him.” What a lifesaver for a young exhausted mother! You were always willing to drive the 3 hours one way and stay to help if I was having an extremely rough physical illness. After we moved to Broken Arrow, if you detected that I was struggling physically, you always offered to help.
Whether we were far or near, you always kept in touch. You always made me feel special. Many times, you called to tell me that God came while you were praying for me.
We loved our Sunday dinners together. Our conservations were all over the place. With all our guys, imaginary inventions were created and politics were discussed and analyzed. Even when things turned hilarious, you would just get a grin, have a quick chuckle and shake your head. Afterwards, if you were hosting and I would start to help clean up; you would say, “Cheryl, now go lay down, I can do these dishes.”
Your house was spotless, but you never chided me when mine wasn’t.
I always appreciated when you helped a righteous cause by calling or writing your representatives. I will not forget your overcoming of fear when you went to the capitol to plead for one man, one woman marriage. It was so out-of-your-comfort zone, but you joined us anyway.
I’ll forever be grateful that the Lord gave you to me as a mother-in-law. I never had an ounce of trouble with you. You made it easy to love you. Thank you, Mom! Love, Cheryl Eslinger
I got to know Ms. Margie as her housekeeper at The Highlands. Everyday as I finished cleaning her room she would always thank me for cleaning her room. I would sometime help her talk to her husband and try and help her fix her phone. She was a great blessing and will forever be in my heart and memories! She was the sweetest!
My beautiful, talented sister has arrived in her heavenly home. I’m sure there was much rejoicing. LoReece was born fifteen months before my birth. Consequently, growing up, we were basically like twins. We played together, slept together, and walked to the store together, and quite often dressed alike. We were known as the Crawford Girls. I was her best friend and she mine. Until the charming Norman Eslimger showed up. I immediately became second best friend.
Music was very important to LoReece. After taking piano lessons a few years, her teacher told my parents she had taught my sister all she could. And she needed a much more advanced instructor. My Dad scraped up the money and she started studying theory, etc. all of it was used for the glory of God.
LoReece’s family meant everything to her. She constantly strived to be the best wife and mother.
My beloved sister was small in stature but a giant in her life. Her reward will surely be great.
What a beautiful and graceful lady she was . Se Her gentle ways revealed a deep love for God. She will be greatly missed. Heaven is getting sweeter. You are all i our prayers.
Vern and Mary Donoho
My Mom - Part 3
About seven years ago dementia intruded into Mom’s life and the progress of this awful disease was a daily battle for both her and Dad. In so many ways it changed who Mom was – but it also revealed who she really was. Insidiously it erased both precious and mundane memories, it humbled her natural sense of dignity, it deepened her melancholic disposition, and it scrubbed away the last features of her youthful beauty. Dementia made it impossible for her to read a book or to process complex information and Mom’s world got progressively smaller and darker. However, as life’s veneer was brutally torn away, in contrast with her circumstances her character was even more evident. I never heard her blame or question the providences of God (“why me?”); even with the increasingly dire physical circumstances she spoke with gratitude for God’s blessings in her life (“I am so blessed”); and her love and concern for family was unwavering- especially for Dad. She maintained a gentle and thankful disposition that was remarkable to those who helped her at the Highlands. All of this is for sure a testimony to Mom’s character but more it is a testimony to God’s faithfulness and grace that kept her spirit strong during her hardest trial. Another name can be added to the cloud of faithful witnesses in Hebrews 11.
Mom’s ambitions I think were singular and uncomplicated – that is to live a Christ-honoring life that would lead to Home. She enjoyed life in so many, many ways – immediate and extended family, music, travel, reading, learning, worship, ministry, friends, and keeping a home; but all of these things were done and enjoyed in a context that would enable her, her family, and those she knew to someday arrive Home.
I am so blessed to have called this very special person, Mom.
My Mom - Part 2
Dad was an avid football and basketball fan (especially of Oklahoma State). On Saturday afternoons in the fall there was an almost an electric charge of excitement mixed with nervousness in our house as we listened to OSU football broadcasts. But somehow, Mom was completely unfazed and could even leave the house and go to the store without any concern for the progress of “the game.”
Mom introduced me to “collecting”. She collected stamps and she helped me to start my own collection. We looked through “stamp catalogs” and then mail ordered affordable stamps. She taught me the technique of carefully looking for a stamp’s watermark and how to use a perforation gauge. Later, I transitioned to collecting coins. At that time silver coinage had not been minted for three or four years and it was soon hoarded and fell out of circulation. To help me build my coin collection, Mom took me to the bank drive through to get several rolls of dimes and quarters and then parked across the street from the bank. I went through the rolls looking for silver coins – and if I luckily found one I replaced it with a clad coin. Patiently and with no complaint, Mom (and poor Janna) then went back to the drive through to get a new batch of rolls; this was repeated over and over for a couple of hours.
When I was about ten or eleven, Mom had a brush with notoriety. While parking at the Mr. Swiss hamburger joint, she accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake and completely smashed the store’s air conditioner and pushed it into the side of the building. There was a fair bit of damage to the store and to the front of our relatively new 1969 blue Chrysler. What left the biggest impression on me from this event was a tearful Mom telling Dad that evening how appreciative she was that he had not gotten upset at her for the accident.
Soon after I was born Mom and Dad moved from Tulsa to Stillwater. However, they still faithfully attended church in Tulsa – which in the 1960’s was over a 90-minute drive. This decades-long routine had a deep influence on our family. In some ways our life in Stillwater had a monastic feel – as all our social life was in Tulsa. However, Sunday was also always fundamentally special and “set apart”. For Mom, the Sunday routine really started on Friday with a trip to the “beauty shop” so she could look “nice” for Sunday. In the summers, Janna and I had to go with her. Thankfully, Mom usually gave me money to buy a Classics Illustrated from Tiger Drug across the street so that I did not have to sit in the hated shop polluted by chatty hairdressers, cigarette smoke, and a fog of hair spray. Afterwards, Mom would often take Janna and I to eat lunch out – an amazing treat for us. Mom’s Sunday started at about 5:30am as she started preparation for the day in Tulsa and we left Stillwater around 7:30am. The Tulsa church was our life outside of home. Here we worshipped as a family and enjoyed the fellowship of friends. Here Mom ministered as a children’s Sunday School teacher, as either the church pianist or organist, and in various singing groups. Sundays in Tulsa usually ended at Grandma’s house eating desert left from Sunday dinner. Almost always, Grandma offered Dad a second helping of desert and Mom would reliably say, “Norman, hurry - it’s getting late and we need to get home.” Even though Dad did the late-night driving, Mom seemed to have a strong sense of schedule and the need to return home.
