Kay Futrell

Kay Lauraine Oliver Futrell was born in Detroit. Her parents, Leonard Mackie Oliver and Flossie Agnes Tennessee Thompson, had moved up north from Arkansas to work in the auto industry. Kay spent the first ten years of her life in public housing, a complex called Marvin Gardens. She was the youngest and lived with her brother, Jack, and sister, Joan. Their first house was in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit. It had white siding and sat among other identical houses on a treeless lot that had probably been farmland. Kay was a Motor City girl. She loved cars, an interest she shared with her father. They both could name the make and year of cars on the road. At night as a small child, she dreamed of driving cars. She often told the story of putting the family car in neutral while it sat in the driveway and steering it as it rolled back into the street. Maybe this was a share with her mother, whose nickname was "Go." Kay wanted to be on the go. Since her mother did not drive at the time, when Kay got her first car as a teenager, she drove her mom around metro Detroit. She never grew bored with driving. She said she would like to have been a pilot or racecar driver. She loved "to take herself out for a drive" around the Ozarks. She had many favorite spots including Fred's Fish House where she could grab fish and hushpuppies and drive down to sit and eat by the river. As a teenage girl, Kay played piano, sang in the choir, and acted in school plays. After graduating in 1963, she attended Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, not far from Paragould where her mother was born and raised. At ASU she met Johny Mack Futrell from Paragould. He was a few years older after service in the U.S. Navy. They were both smitten and in love and out of college after one semester! They married in the early spring of 1964 and had their first child, Brent Jonathon, at the end of the year. At first John worked for the Army Corps of Engineers in Arkansas and Louisiana, but Kay convinced him there were better jobs up north, so they made the move to Michigan. They first lived in Trenton, then Dearborn Heights when John got a job at Ford Motor Company where he worked most of his life and from which he retired. They had their second child, Heather Kathleen, and then moved to Taylor, where they had their third child, Jason Lamar. Over the years Kay had many great interests, but two were passions. She love everything to do with home interiors: paint, furniture, wall hangings, room arrangement. She would draw out organizational plans for furniture - in other people's houses - just because she liked doing that. She rearranged and repainted her own house constantly. She also collected antique furniture, plates, and ceramics - always proud of the deals she managed. On a tour of her home, the visitor would encounter a ceramic flower on a shelf and a plate hung on the wall - all placed with much thought and vision. The other great part of her life was her Christian practice. Kay was a faithful believer. She began each morning with prayer and a Bible reading. She attended church every Sunday, sang in many choirs (sharing solo pieces when she could), and tithed regularly. She learned American Sign Language and incorporated signing into her singing. She and John were together until he passed away in 2008. They were two feisty people with so much humor. Heather has two sons, Jonathan Matthew and David James, and Jonathan has a daughter, Mavis. Kay prayed for her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild every day. "Funny things" to remember: Kay labeled every box and container in the house; she liked the crooner Johnny Mathis; she loved playing board games - no one could beat her at Tiles. Many people are like Kay; she was stoic and tough (quite like her parents), but she did not complain. Her children believed she did her best at looking after them, and even though her life was long and full, her end seemed sudden and tragic to them. She was a good mom. Kay was loved and now extremely missed. In addition to her immediate family, Kay is survived by her son-in-law, Jim Landstrom, and her daughter-in-law, Cori Beckwith. A memorial service will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 18 in Hardy United Methodist Church with Pastor Kay Brogdon officiating.