Fannie Mayo

Fannie (Shelton) Mayo was born February 1, 1926, in Slagle, West Virginia to parents Robert and Emma (Stewart) Shelton.

Fannie was the youngest of 9 children (7 living) and was only 9 months old when her father died in a coal mine cave in where he was a supervisor.  Her paternal grandmother came to live with them to help her mother with the children still living at home.  The coal company provided a house for them to live in, but they had to work in the company store to receive scrips for food that they didn’t grow and other items at the store.  After her grandmother passed away, she had to move in with her oldest sister because her mother was in a sanatorium with TB and passed away when she was 15.

When she graduated from high school, she married Odell Mayo on Christmas day in 1944.  They grew up together in the same coal camp in the mountains of West Virginia.  When they couldn’t get their own house in the coal camp, they moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico where her husband was a supervisor at the potash mines until the mines closed.  While living in Carlsbad, both of them were big bowlers and Fannie traveled around several states in a lady's league.  Her team won the state championship of New Mexico in the 1960s.

They moved to Dallas and then Irving, Texas and were members of Plymouth Park Methodist Church.  They liked to travel with their church class and renewed their wedding vows in Bethlehem, Jerusalem in the mid-1990s.  Fannie also traveled with the church choir to sing in Carnegie Hall.

After retiring from Massey Cadillac, Fannie volunteered as an ambassador at DFW airport.  She loved organized exercise classes, dancing and many other social activities.  For the last five and a half years of her life, she lived in a memory care facility in Murphy, Texas.  She was called Mother and was always laughing and cutting up with the caregivers.

Fannie is survived by her children Larry Mayo and his wife Pat and Patty Grazioli and her husband Greg; grandchildren Brittany Mayo Rimmer and her husband Ben, Steven Mayo and his wife Megan and Kyle Grazioli and his wife Victoria; great grandchildren Brayden Rimmer, Addy and Jamie Mayo and Ethan and Emmett Grazioli. She was preceded in death by her husband Odell Mayo.

There will be a graveside service to honor Fannie’s life at Dallas/Ft Worth National Cemetery, Monday, March 7, 2022, at 10:15 a.m. with Pastor Robert Matthews officiating.