So, pretty much my Great-Grandmother's life was so awesome that they decided to do a special article on her in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. They interviewed my mom and Great-Aunt Janelle for it. I thought this was pretty cool.
FORT WORTH MOTHER WORKED HARD ALL HER LIFE FOR HER FAMILY
BY CHRIS VAUGHN
cvaughn@star-telegram.com
FORT WORTH -- Juanita McNatt was 14 when her mother died, and she had to go to work.
Mrs. McNatt was 29 when her husband died, and she had to keep working.
Straight on through the years -- through children, grandchildren and two generations more, a bomber plant, professional wrestling promotions and a dry cleaning business -- Mrs. McNatt worked, until she finally decided to retire at the age of almost 90.
"She instilled a strong work ethic in all of us," said her granddaughter, Denise Cauble of Arlington. "All the women in our family work, and we're all independent."
The family matriarch, known as "Nee Nee," quietly died on Monday in bed at her daughter's house in the Riverside neighborhood of Fort Worth. She had made it to 98.
Born Dec. 21, 1910, in Graham, Mrs. McNatt was the oldest of six children. When she was 14 and her youngest sibling was 2, her mother died of tuberculosis. "I think because of that, she was a lifelong caregiver," said her daughter, Janelle Kavanaugh, 71.
Her first job, as a teenager, was at the Montgomery Ward department store in Fort Worth, where she met her first husband, John Crow. He died in December 1939 after they had been married less than 10 years, leaving her with two young daughters to raise.
But because Social Security did not start helping widows with children until 1940, "she was never able to get any government help for us," Kavanaugh said.
"She was my hero because she kept us together," she said.
Within a few years, she married her second husband, Ellis McNatt, who died in 1991.
She worked at the Consolidated Vultee bomber plant during World War II, then at her aunt's window-shade shop. From the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s, she worked for an uncle who owned a promotions firm that booked professional wrestling shows at the Northside Coliseum in the Stockyards.
"I spent a lot of Saturdays going to work with her at the Northside Coliseum," Cauble said. "She would set us up in an office, and we got to act like we were working. We got to play in the Coliseum and help make corndogs."
Mrs. McNatt's grandchildren met some of the great professional wrestlers of the day -- George Scott, Fritz Von Erich and Johnny Valentine -- and received a newsletter on the matches when they were at summer camps.
Her children and grandchildren eagerly anticipated the matches, even if no one was sure that Mrs. McNatt loved it as much. "She didn't really dislike anything," her daughter said. "But she went because we wanted to go."
After she left the world of professional wrestling promotions, she went to work for her daughter at Riverside Cleaners, where she was a fixture into her late 80s.
She worked not just because she had to; she also liked it for the social interaction, her family said. "She loved people," her daughter said.
Other survivors include daughter Jonette White; stepdaughter Wanda Hensley; nine grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren; and 1 great-great-grandchild.
Service: 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Mount Olivet Funeral Home, 2301 N. Sylvania Ave. Burial: Mount Olivet Cemetery.
