Raymond Spears

November 10, 1922 - April 29, 2012

FORT WORTH -- Raymond E. "Bebe" Spears passed away Sunday, April 29, 2012. Funeral Service: 11 a.m. Thursday at Blessing Funeral Home. Visitation: before the service. Raymond was born November 10, 1922 in Fort Worth and was the fourth son and sixth child of Henry Phillip Spears and Irene Boone Spears. He worked with the C.C.C. during the depression and worked at the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Later, after failing physicals to join the WWII military, he and several friends went to California to work. He returned to Texas and began work at Bell Helicopter July 9, 1952. He retired from Bell in 1987. During his last months, his prime caregivers, nieces Karen Spears Benson and Kay Spears Underwood, childhood friend Mary Lou Walls and brothers George and James T. Spears provided loving care for him. Raymond was preceded in death by his wife Doris Jean Stanton Spears, March 24, 1980, and Clara Maye Wardlaw Spears, July 28, 2010, and stepdaughter Connie Foster Burton, April 3, 1994. In addition, his parents and siblings Cecil H. Spears, William D. Spears, Eleanor Pressley Wilshire, Ethel Spears and John Calvin Spears preceded him in death. Survivors: Raymond is survived by his siblings, George E. Spears, James T. Spears, Shirley Spears Nowicki and Dorothy Spears Campbell; many nieces and nephews, in particular Barbara Spears Crouch and Rebecca Ann Richardson; fellow Bell Helicopter retirees and other friends.