Wanda Jean Howerton, daughter of Clyde and Opal (Davis) Stevens was born December 17, 1938, on a farm near Conway, Mo. She departed this life on October 4, 2023, at her home in Long Lane at the age of 84. Wanda was a four-time cancer survivor, and she had been legally blind since the age of 31 due to progressive macular degeneration.
On June 26, 1956, Wanda was united in marriage with Hershel Howerton, and the couple had three sons. She accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior and then became a life-long member of Harmony Baptist Church.
Wanda was brought up on farms in southwestern Laclede County and lived for 59 years on the farm she and Hershel purchased in 1964. Although hampered by increasingly limited vision, she was always up and doing. Gardening, raising chickens, and cooking were three of her favorite activities, and she served as a room mother at Long Lane Elementary for two decades. She also relished seasonal activities, such as hosting yard sales, picking up walnuts, and decorating for holidays. She operated a small kennel for several years raising basset hounds, cocker spaniels, Labrador retrievers, and Irish setters. Wanda was one of the wisest women ever to live on a dairy farm, for she refused to learn how to milk cows.
Wanda was preceded in death by her parents; her husband Hershel; four brothers, Junior Stevens and wife Loretta, Donald Stevens and wife Shirley, James Stevens (Korean war), and Jack Stevens and wife Evonne; one sister Bernice Long and husband William; and her brother-in-law Bill Rose.
She is survived by her three sons, Thomas and wife Tammy of Long Lane, Phillip and wife Victoria of West Plains, and John and wife Marlana of Phillipsburg, and by four grandchildren, Cole Howerton, Audrey Howerton, Claudia Tinsley, and Sarita Rivera. She is also survived by two brothers, Jerr
