Ila Dea Fields
1938-2020
Ila Dea Ames Fields went to her heavenly reward on March 5, 2020 after a prolonged illness. Dea was born in Mooreland, OK on November 12, 1938 to Weber Durant and Blanche Willie (Lintner) Ames, the oldest of three children. Dea grew up in the Curtis and Mooreland communities and attended grades one through eight at Curtis school. She then attended Mooreland schools graduating in the spring of 1957. During these early years, she was active in 4-H Club activities and won many blue ribbons for her sewing and cooking skills.
On July 4, 1957 she was united in marriage to Gary L. Fields at the home of her parents. They established their first home in south Oklahoma City and Dea attended and graduated from Draughon's Business College in 1959. She was baptized at the age of nineteen at the Southwest Church of Christ by longtime minister Lewis Hale. She remained a faithful Christian the rest of her life and enjoyed teaching in the pre-school department at Southwest and Memorial Road Church of Christ and especially enjoyed teaching babies and toddlers. She was an excellent seamstress and quilter and a very good cook and was well known for her delicious hot yeast rolls and cinnamon rolls. She also enjoyed reading, water aerobics and traveling having visited 35 of the 50 U. S. states and several places in South and Latin America, Europe and Africa.
Gary and Dea have enjoyed sixty-two years of marriage and were blessed by daughter Sherri and two sons Steven and Stacey. Over the years their home has also been blessed at times by the inclusion of some family members, friends and students including a Vietnamese brother and sister from Saigon. After her children were in school she worked part-time at several insurance companies. After moving to Edmond in mid-year 1969, she worked in the Athletic Dept. at Oklahoma Christian University as an administrative assistant for twenty-years, retiring in 2001. Before and after retirement she enjoyed volunteer work at Edmond Meals on Wheels as a cook and she worked many years as a judge for the Oklahoma County Election Board. She had an infectious smile, an unusual laugh, a fun loving and outgoing personality and was always looking for a humorous play on words or a good pun. She was always ready to tell you a story about the misuse of her preferred name "Dea" such as when authorities at the Miami Intl. Airport questioned why she had stenciled DEA on the side of her trunk when traveling to Bolivia to help with a new grandson.
Dea was preceded in death by her parents, several aunts and uncles and youngest brother Albert. She is survived by her brother, Eldon Ames, (Enid) Sister-in-law Carolyn Ames (Mooreland), sister-in law Geneva Sue Fields (CA) and niece Gina (Ames) Carroll (Edmond). She is also survived by daughter Sherri Hines (Ken), sons Steven (Kay) and Stacey (Terri), seven grandchildren, Kelli, Amy and Brad Hines, Lily Fields, and Ben, Isaac and Eli Fields and by numerous cousins other relatives and friends The family is especially grateful for the invaluable service provided to Dea the past three years by the many wonderful Companion at Home Hospice and day care workers, caregiver Kayla Sheldon and the many visits and assistance from the ladies of the Empty Nesters/Nines Bible class. Having suffered the disabling effects of Cortical Basal Ganglionic Degeneration (CBGD) the past several years she has decided to donate her body to medical research so that additional research might be performed about this little known disease.
Services will be held at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, March 21, 2020 at Memorial Road Church of Christ.
Memorials in honor of Dea may be made to the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, In Search of the Lord's Way, or Memorial Road Church of Christ-Missions.