Reva Jean Spiller, 90, of Kingsland died Oct. 26, 2018
Reva Jean Spiller
On Oct. 26, 2018, Reva Jean Spiller, 90, of Kingsland, Texas, went to be with the Lord and her many friends and family who have passed on before her. She was born to Albert Martin and Doris (Spece) Olsen on April 27, 1928, in Vim, Colorado.
Reva was one of 10 children born to her father, Albert, and mother, Doris. She was only a year and half old when her father passed away, leaving her mother to raise and support the 10 children at the height of the depression.
The whole family had to pitch in to make ends meet. When Reva was just 16, her mother passed away. That put an extra burden on the still-growing family.
Reva applied for and was able to get a work permit so she could work as a teenager to help support the family. She worked as a telephone operator when the switchboards were just plugs and wires and to make the connection between two phones required a physical wire between the two connections. She and her sisters would travel some with the phone company to various locations that needed good, reliable operators in a crunch or crisis, and the phone company would put them up in a hotel. That was pure luxury for those girls.
Later on, Reva was able to finish and get her high school diploma in California. She met her husband, Richard Eugene Spiller, after he served some time in the U.S. Marines during World War II. After she and Richard were married, he would buy different businesses.
He, at one time, bought a hotel so Reva would stay busy. She had lots of hats to wear in the hotel business. After selling the hotel, he bought a hair salon. Reva told him she knew nothing about cutting or styling hair. He told her, “Then I guess you need to go back to school and get your beautician license,” which she did. She graduated from a beauty school in Denver.
The two of them also were mystery shoppers for a rubber company and would spend time going up and down the Eastern seaboard buying different rubber products and reporting their findings back to the company.
Reva always loved to do things with her hands, and she was a gifted painter and knew how to sew a lot of things. She was a lifetime member of the Kingsland Arts and Crafts Guild and enjoyed the ladies and the different arts and crafts that they would make and talk about. There was always a story to be told about a particular item that had been made by one of them, and everyone around wanted to hear about it.
Reva was beautiful both in and out, a lovely lady even in her later years. A tradition that she really enjoyed was, once a year, in the summertime, her nieces, Carol McNulty, Gay Lambirth, and Jane Baker would come down and spend a week with Reva. It was their sister time with Reva. They really enjoyed her, and she did enjoy their visits. They always had so much fun and couldn’t wait to come back the next summer.
Reva is survived by a daughter, Louise Spiller; two grandchildren, Christopher and Samantha; and sister Mary Lewis of Minneola, who is 103 years young.
Reva was preceded in death by her parents, and siblings Robert Olsen, Marvin Olsen, Henry Olsen, Sidney Olsen, Georgie Evertson, Albert Olsen, William Olsen, and Lois Stanfield.
No services are planned at this time.
Cremation arrangements by Putnam Funeral Home and Crematory, 145 Texas Ave. in Kingsland, (325) 388-0008. Go to putnamcares.com to offer condolences.