Leo P.[Clement]Rodgers
Leo P. Rodgers, 79, 3720 W. Houston St., died at 7:50 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2000, at Christus St. Joseph's Hospital.
Services will be at 2 p.m. Friday, Jan. 7, at Fry and Gibbs Funeral Home Chapel with Dr. Raymond Armstrong officiating. Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery. Friends may call at the family residence Thursday afternoon and evening.
Mr Rodgers was born Nov. 28, 1920, in Watertown, N.Y., to Ezra and Julia Clement. He was one of five brothers and three sisters. In 1926, he and two brothers rode the Orphan Train from New York to Texas where he was adopted by Joe and Othelo Arnold Rodgers on April 2, gaining six new sisters and four new brothers.
He attended schools in Detroit and entered the Army, serving from 1937 until 1945. During World War II he served in New Guinea and Luzon in the South Pacific. He received the following decorations and citations: American Defense, American Theater, Asiatic Pacific Theater, Philippine Liberation, and the Victory Medal.
He was a former lineman for Texas Power and Light Co. and was retired from retail sales. He married Dorothy Knowles Jan. 26, 1946, in Paris.
Surviving are his wife; two daughters, Diane Merritt and husband Mike of Fountain Valeey, Calif., and Linda Tolleson and husband Gary of Lewisville; a grandaugter, Aimee Tolleson of Lewisville; two brothers, Lee Nailling, of Atlanta, Texas, and George Gilard of Orman Beach, Fl., and a sister Beatrice Kennemer of Paris. He was preceded in death by seven brothers and eight sisters.
Pallbearers will be Bill Haynes, Roger Holman, Philip Lightfoot, Thomas Lightfoot, Lee Nailling Jr. and Gary Tolleson.
