Novella Gilbreath
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Novella Idella Gilbreath passed away October 7, 2019 at her home near Woodson, Texas. Funeral service will be held at 2:00 PM Thursday, October 10, 2019 at the First Baptist Church in Woodson with interment in the Woodson Cemetery. Visitation will be from 1 PM until service time at the Church. McMillan-Satterwhite Funeral Home in Graham is in charge of arrangements.
Novella was born February 13, 1925 in Titus Community, Throckmorton County, Texas to
Walter L. Bradley and Mary Izora Herrington Bradley. She married Lloyd Ervin Gilbreath on October 24, 1948 in Ada, Oklahoma. He preceded her in death on December 12, 1975. She was also preceded in death by her parents; one brother, Randall Bradley; and one sister, Rozella Bradley.
Novella graduated from Albany High School in 1943. Upon graduation, she left home with $20 her parents gave her and rode the train to Sweetwater, Texas to train for employment with Western Union Telegraph Company. When she completed her training, she was sent to Springfield, Missouri as her first position. During World War II, she traveled to many different towns to perform her job. She started in Springfield, Missouri and worked her way through Oklahoma all the way to Brownsville, Texas.
She often told of riding the train for multiple days at a time, standing up or sitting in the aisles due to the vast number of military soldiers being transported to their next training facility. She was often the only woman on the train due to her priority job status and would be ordered to sit in the front of the train with the conductor on several long trips.
She met and married Lloyd Gilbreath while working in Oklahoma and they traveled extensively for both of their jobs.
After the war Novella and Lloyd lived in South Texas as well as Central Texas. She changed careers after the war and received her Nursing Home Administrator License and worked as an administrator for 35 years. Upon retirement, she returned to her family farm in Woodson, Texas where she desired to live out the remainder of her life. She succeeded. She was able to live in her family home until her passing at the age of 94.