LOIS ELAINE KNUDSON AYERS
1919-2016
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven…” (2Cor 5:1)
Lois Elaine Knudson Ayers left this world to enter heaven on Valentine’s Day, Sunday, the 14th of February 2016. She was 97. Her “earthly tent” is no more and, in her resurrection body, she is dancing in the spike heels she loved so much.
Lois was the first baby born on New Year’s Day in 1919, in Nampa, Idaho, the only child of Clifford and Alice Bader Hart. Her father was in the wholesale grocery business and moved the family to Boise not long after she was born. He died of complications from typhoid fever when she was six, and her mother remarried Walter Diefendorf, whom she loved greatly as a devoted stepfather.
She graduated from Boise High School, “studied boys” (her words not ours) for one year at the College of Idaho, and took a job as a secretary in the Idaho State House, working for various senior state government officials.
In 1943 she married Angus “Gus” Knudson, whom she had known briefly at the College of Idaho and who was just finishing Navy pilot training in Corpus Christi. They spent most of the rest of the war separated, with him deployed aboard aircraft carriers in the Pacific. Their only son, Tom Knudson, was born after the end of the war in 1946. Gus made a career of the Navy, and they moved often, living in Florida, Virginia, Texas, Rhode Island, California, and Hawaii over the next 20 years. Lois loved the life of a Navy wife. She volunteered at naval hospitals and supported many veterans’ organizations. She was also a proud member of the P.E.O. sisterhood for many decades.
In 1974, Gus died at the age of 57, after 31 years of marriage. A few years later, Lois was blessed to meet Dr. John Ayers, MD, whom she married in 1979. Also a native Idahoan, John had served as a captain in the medical corps in Europe in WWII, returning to Moscow, Idaho to set up his medical practice. Following their wedding, Lois and John lived in Moscow, where he continued to practice medicine. After his retirement in 1994, they moved to a home on a golf course in Las Vegas, where they lived for 19 years. Lois loved both the golf course and the view of the mountains. In 2013 they moved to Houston, where they had a view of our down- town skyscrapers (the closest thing we have in Houston to mountains...).
Lois is survived by her wonderful husband John; son Tom, his wife Candy, and their children Chris, Clare, and Rainey; son Jack, his wife Jane, and their children John, Corie, David, and James; son Steve, his wife Mary, and their children Doug and David; and eight great-grandchildren (plus one on the way) who loved their “G.G.”
The family wishes to offer special thanks to the staff at the Hallmark, and to John and Lois’ wonderful caregivers, Esther Beasley, Annette Michaeux, and Myatis Arseno.
A memorial service celebrating Lois’ life is to be conducted at three o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday, the 20th of February, at the Church of St. John the Divine, 2450 River Oaks Boulevard in Houston, where The Rev. Dr. Clay Lein, Rector, and The Rev. Douglas W. Richnow, D. Min., Senior Associate Rector, are to preside.
Immediately following, all are invited to greet the family during a reception in the adjacent Sumners Hall.
In lieu of customary remembrances, the family requests that contributions in memory of Lois Ayers be directed to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, 875 N. Randolph St. Suite 225, Arlington, VA 22203; or to the Church of St. John the Divine, 2450 River Oaks Blvd, Houston, TX 77019.