Alma Lee Yates (Stratton)

Alma Yates passed away on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, at Hunt Reginal Hospital in Greenville, Texas. She was born in Choctaw, Oklahoma, on November 28, 1937, to Emmett Stratton and Pauline Acree Stratton.  A visitation is scheduled for Monday, June 23, 2025 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at Commerce Funeral Home. The funeral service will be Tuesday, June 24, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. at Commerce Funeral Home. Interment will be at Rosemound Cemetery in Commerce.

Alma graduated from Choctaw High School in 1955. She began college in Oklahoma City, then earned her degree in education at East Texas State University in Commerce, Texas. While she was showing pigs at the state fair during her senior year, she met Robert Yates, who was showing Herford cattle. They married on August 11, 1956. They enjoyed 64 years of marriage together before Robert’s death in 2017. Alma taught in Pecan Gap and Greenville schools for 32 years. Her favorites were fifth and sixth grades. Following retirement, she truly enjoyed the antique business, painting, and traveling to the Rocky Mountains.

Left to cherish Alma’s memory are her sons, Robert, Jr, of Commerce, and Kenny and wife, Cathy, of Saucier, Mississippi; a younger sister, Deanna Sparks, of Oklahoma City, her granddaughter, five grandsons, 10 great grandchildren, as well as many nieces and nephews.

Alma is preceded in death by her husband, Robert, her parents, Emmett and Pauline Stratton, her daughter-in-law, Sara, and an older sister, Willa Knight.

Serving as pallbearers for Alma are Jody Hettich, Brangus Winkle, Doug Cox, Dustin Davis, Togy Scroggins, and Brandon Luckett.

Rather than send flowers, the family requests that you make a donation to the American Cancer Society.