WANDA SUE ROSE BURLESON, 90, passed away
May 14, 2021, at Bangs, TX, with interment in
Bullock Cemetery near Ranger, TX.
Wanda was born Jan. 5,, 1931 in Bunger, TX to
George Price & Katy (Lane) Rose. The family
moved to Ranger in August of 1934 to a farm
about 1½ miles North of town on the Caddo Hwy,
just a short distance north of her grandparent's
place, George W. & Emma (Belyeu) Rose. Wanda
attended school in Ranger, graduating from
Ranger High School in 1948, and attended 2nd
Baptist Church in Ranger. She worked as a
telephone operator, & graduated from Ranger Jr.
College where she met Carl Loyd Burleson (RJC-
1949) in calculating class. They married in
Feb. of 1951 in Eastland County, TX. They had
three daughters, Sue Ann, Carla Marie & Cathy
Lynn, all born in Graham, TX.
The family moved to Mineral Wells, TX in 1959
where Carl Loyd worked as a flight instructor
for Southern Airways & Wanda as a switchboard
telephone operator until the end of the
Vietnam War. Wanda and the girls attended
Calvary Baptist and later Immanuel Baptist
Church in Mineral Wells. She transferred to
Carlswell Air Force Base in Ft. Worth after
Ft. Wolters closed to work in transportation
(moving military family household goods.) She
also worked a 2nd job as a switchboard operator
at Palo Pinto General Hospital in Mineral Wells.
Wanda retired in the 1990's and went to live
with her daughter, Carla on Lake Brownwood,
where Wanda continued to work, first at a
convenience store on the Lake and later at a
nursing facility in Brownwood.
Raised on a farm, Wanda learned to work hard,
was handy with tools, crops and farm animals.
She still loved to work outdoors later in
life. She was very good at math, also played
a little piano, sewing, crochet and loved to
play Skip-bo. Wanda was a fiercely devoted
mother. There are photos of her young girls,
all with long hair, that showed the care she
gave each one in the days before blow dryers
and curling irons.
She is survived by her daughter, Sue Ann
Burleson of Blue Ridge, TX; brother Price Rose
(RHS-1950) & sister-in-law Betty (Hagar) Rose
of Lake Leon in Eastland, TX; sister Carolyn
Rose Whittington (RHS-1958) of Olden, TX; 2
sons-in-laws, Joe Burns of Brownwood, TX and
Reuben Regalado of San Antonio, TX; 4 grand-
children, Reagan Burns of Brownwood, Deacon
Burns and wife Amber of New Braunfels, TX,
Meagan St. Clair of Pipe Creek, TX and Will
Daniel Koen of Carrollton, TX; 7 great-grand-
children, Marshall Burns, Hadley, Huxley and
Harper Burns, Isaiah St. Clair, David and
Raylan Zwiener.
Wanda is preceded in death by her sisters,
Rachel Rose Wakefield (RHS-1943) and Lanelle
Rose Brummett (RHS-1944); daughters, Carla
Burns and Cathy Regalado (Ingalls).