Julia Josephine Kelleher Beal, Sheila, passed peacefully Wednesday evening, October 19, 2022, at her home surrounded by family.
The family will host a time of visitation at 9:00 a.m. followed by a memorial service celebrating her life at 10:00 a.m. Saturday, November 5, 2022, at Stevens Funeral Home Chapel, with Justin Smith, associate pastor of First Baptist Church, officiating.
Services are entrusted to Stevens Funeral Home, 400 W. Pecan Street, in Coleman.
Sheila was born April 8, 1940. in County Cork, Ireland to Batt and Hannah Kelleher. She grew up playing in castle ruins, picking berries and thistle, fishing with a safety pin and string, dancing an Irish jig, and being a cook’s help for the fancy Lady Dill. Her older sister, Nora May, was in America and told Sheila about America’s beauty and opportunity. Sheila came at seventeen with a suitcase and twenty dollars. She arrived on Ellis Island and began a life she loved. Sheila lived a life filled with adventures of which novels are written. She met Lou Beal in Phoenix and fell madly in love. She learned to cook pinto beans and cornbread, play dominoes with Bill Beal, and seine for bait to catch catfish while raising her three children, Robert, Bridget, and Joe. She loved her family, loved her friends, and loved a hoard of other people’s kiddos that she did not have to but wanted to. Sheila was a phenomenal wife, mom, Mema, friend, confidant, comedian, chef, blackjack player, and artist. She was a safe haven with the biggest smile, the right words, and comforting hugs.
Sheila is survived by her husband, Lou; her children, Robert and Liz Beal, David and Bridget Wakefield, and Joe and Rosie Beal; her grand loves, Brayden Beal, Dave Wakefield, Robbie Beal, Barrett Beal, Claire Beal, and Branson Beal; brothers Bart and Paddy Kelleher; sisters, Teresa O’Neill and Kathleen Murphy; and many nieces and nephews, friends of her children and grandchildren she loved as her own, she leaves a legacy of love.
Memorials are suggested in memory of Sheila to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at www.stjude.org, or to the Coleman County Senior Center, 916 S. Concho Street, Coleman, Texas 76834.
Remembrances and condolences can be written to the family via the virtual guestbook on Sheila’s tribute page at www.stevensfuneralhome.com. Stevens Funeral Home is honored to serve the Beal family.