Josephine Ellen

Dykes

Josephine Ellen Dykes , 91, passed away Monday, August 18, 2025 in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Josephine was born on June 28, 1934 in Cuba, Missouri to Louis and Marvel (Gilcrest) Anderson. Her family owed a lumber mill and she saw electricity come down the railroad tracks and her house was the first to get electricity run to the house. After graduating from high school she left Cuba,Mo.

In the mid 1960's she met and then married Bruce L. Halverson who was in the USAF. After the birth of their daughter, Jo travelled to the Phillipines, Burkburnett,Tx, Fairbanks, Alaska, Minot, N.D., and then back to Burkburnett, Tx. She worked in the PX in Alaska, the manager of the American Legion Post 264, The manager of the shoe dept in the Walmart in Burkburnett when it opened, and her last job was working for the Wichita Falls Police Dept as a neighborhood watch/Sentinel. While still working at Walmart in the early 1980's, she made gowns for girls who were entering beauty pageant and she helped the Director of the Boomtown Babes create a new piece of the uniform with other moms.
After her divorce from Bruce she met Lester Dykes and she learned how code and became a H.A.M. radio operator, volunteered to help with the Hotter than Hell Hundred, and storm chaser. Her and Lester married and they moved out to Lake Arrowhead where she lived several years even after Lester died in 1999, then moved into Wichita Falls in 2005 due to declining health.

She is preceded in death by her parents, her middle sister Anna Messick, her husband Lester Dykes, her younger brother Louis Anderson, her oldest sister Ethel Modlin.

Jo is survived by her daughter Terry Smith of OKC, her grandchildren Joshua A. Smith and Kellie M. Smith, and great grandchilren Madison, Asher, Soren, Aerowynn, and Abram of Lawton, Ok