Lois Katherine Burley

Lois Katherine Burley was born Lois Tinney, on February 12, 1929, to Alfred and Mae Tinney, in Hitchita, Oklahoma. She was the youngest of 8 children and lived her entire childhood in McIntosh County. She graduated valedictorian from Checotah High School in 1947. After finishing high school, she moved that summer to Tulsa where she started employment. For most of her adult life, she worked doing drafting for various companies in the oil and gas industry in and around the Tulsa area. She first lived in an apartment which she shared with a friend and roommate. That roommate was dating a man named Bob Burley. After meeting Lois, he introduced her to his twin brother, Ralph, who also lived in Tulsa. And the rest…as they say…is history. 

Ralph and Lois were married on May 27th, 1949, and made their first home in Tulsa. While there, they had a son and a daughter. In 1962, about the time the eldest was to start school, they decided to move out of the city and raise their children in the suburb of Broken Arrow, which at that time, had a population of less than 10,000. Shortly after making their home there, they had another daughter. They resided in Broken Arrow for the next 14 years, graduating their two oldest children from high school while there. In 1976, they moved to Gillette, Wyoming, where both took jobs with regional coal mining companies. Lois continued her work as a draftsman for that business until she retired a few years later. 

After retirement, they moved to Casper, Wyoming, and lived there for the next several years. During that period, their children and grandchildren born up to that time, had all eventually made their homes in the Oklahoma City metro area. Ralph and Lois decided it best, for obvious reasons, to join the rest of their family back in Oklahoma. Sometime around 1994, they moved to Edmond, where they lived for the next several years. They attended the Edmond Church of Christ, where both worked regularly in that congregation’s tv and radio program known as Search. Eventually, they ended up in the Yukon area and made their membership with the South Yukon Church of Christ. Lois faithfully attended there even after Ralph’s death, and after moving into a senior living apartment complex, as long as she could get a ride to and from services and Bible classes. She finished her final days living at Glade Assisted Living in Bethany, where she peacefully passed away on July 13th.

Lois was preceded in death by her parents, all seven of her siblings, and by her husband of 68 years in 2018. She leaves behind all 3 of their children, son Paul Kevin Burley, of Piedmont, Oklahoma, daughter Lisa Vaughn, of Yukon, Oklahoma, and daughter Suzanne Montgomery of Oklahoma City. She has 9 grandchildren and 24 great grandchildren. She forever leaves fond memories on the hearts and in the lives of those she touched, both friends and family.

Services will be held on Saturday, August 1, 2026, beginning at 10:00 a.m. at the Matthews Funeral Home Chapel in Edmond, OK.