Zada Crocker
Zada Nell Limerick was born on 7 September 1931 at Gotebo, a small farm town in Kiowa County, in southwestern Oklahoma. When she applied for a Social Security number she named her parents as C. W. Limerick and Nell Crocker. Her mother, Nell Ellen "Nellie" Crocker, was sixteen when Zada was born and gave her own name to her daughter as a middle name. Her father, Charley Will Limerick, was eighteen. Their gravestone gives their wedding date as 31 October 1936, five years after Zada's birth.
In April 1940 Zada, eight, was living at Gotebo. In 1941 and 1942 she was enrolled in school in Comanche County, with her father, Charley W. Limerick, named as her parent.
On 1 June 1948, at sixteen, Zada married James Elmer Taylor in Coryell County, Texas, the county of the Army post at Fort Hood. Her daughter Terri Lynn Taylor was born at Oklahoma City on 30 May 1953. A son, William Samuel Taylor, called Sam, was born in Germany on 3 June 1957. Her other children were James Wayne Taylor, a daughter Marta, later Mrs. Wages, and a son who carried the surname Phelps, Nolen Phelps.
On 22 July 1977 Zada married Willis Edward Schantz in Wichita County, Texas, just south of the Red River from Lawton. He was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army who had served in Vietnam, and he lived until 2019. Zada's children grew up around Lawton and Medicine Park.
Zada Nell Schantz died on 19 July 1993, at sixty-one. She was buried in Gotebo Cemetery, in the town where she was born. Her flat red granite stone reads "Loving Daughter, Wife, Mother." Her mother Nellie, who had borne her at sixteen, outlived her by five months.
Sources
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Researched October 2026. Cite: Heirology, "Zada Crocker (1931-1993)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/zada-crocker-1931-1993-513f87.