Jackie Souza Richards

Jacquelyn Souza Richards, daughter, mother, Nanny and friend to everyone she met, passed away peacefully on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2018 surrounded by family and friends. She was 70. Funeral services are scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday at Griffin-Roughton Funeral Home in Corsicana. Burial will follow in Pattison Cemetery in Emhouse. Visitation will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Griffin-Roughton. Jackie lived life to the fullest every single day. Her outgoing personality was infectious and could lift your spirits with just a kind word or a smile and the tilt of her head. She loved sports from watching her grandchildren play to her rabid devotion to the Texas Rangers and Dallas Mavericks. Although she never played much organized sports, she was an expert sports referee, and always offered to help officiate basketball games or umpire baseball games from the stands. Family was the center of her universe. Her greatest joy was to spend time with her grandchildren, who she spoiled without apology. She loved to watch them play, whether it was with toy action figures on her living room floor or her granddaughter smacking home runs in a softball game. Jackie was born July 20, 1948 in Malakoff to Velma Grace and Edward Souza and graduated from Malakoff High School in 1965. She was a cheerleader who always bled Black and Gold for the Malakoff Tigers. She attended Henderson County Junior College, where she was a member of the HCJC Cardettes drill team that performed in the 1966 Junior Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. In the words of her mom, Jackie majored in “Subology,” at HCJC, for the many hours she spent in the Student Union Building playing cards and socializing with other HCJC students. She lived most of her adult life in Kerens and Corsicana. She was a caregiver for many years in the nursing home and medical care field, where she knew more about the patients than their own doctors. Jackie never met a stranger and could carry on a conversation with the company CEO or the janitor and never skip a beat. Three beautiful daughters and sons-in-law (Julie and Darrell Waller of Mildred, Malissa and Bobby Shults and Jennifer and Ryan Ellis of Corsicana) and one son (Clayton Richards of Corsicana) called her mom, and she was Nanny to Clay, Keith, Callie, Bryce, Jacob, Kaegen, and Sutton, who she loved to the moon and back. Jill Souza Davis of Malakoff, big sister, lifelong best friend and often partner in various shenanigans, will carry on her unwavering quest to help the Rangers win the World Series. Chip Souza (Kim) of Bella Vista, Ark., her brother and sister-in-law, will continue to bring humor and fun to family functions, just as she would. She is welcomed home by her parents, numerous close family members and husband John Richards, who she is no doubt covering with kisses and overjoyed that they are reunited again.

Jackie Souza Richards

July 20, 1948 - September 1, 2018