Ethel “Erin” Bush (née Wells), of McKinney, Texas, passed peacefully on January 7, 2025, her eighty-fourth birthday.  A dedicated wife, loving mother, proud grandmother, thoughtful friend, and woman of faith, Erin was beloved by everyone whose life she touched.

Ethel Erin Bush, who always went by Erin, was born to Cecil Thomas Wells and Theodora Ann Wells on January 7, 1941, in Beaumont, Texas.  The first daughter and the third of five children, Erin was doted on by her father, who’d pick her up from school and buy her potato chips and Coke, then take her along with him as he collected insurance premiums.  A girly girl who loved pretty dresses and playing with dolls, she spent the first few years of her life in Sour Lake, Texas, then on a farm in Silsbee, Texas, before moving with her family to Beaumont, Texas, where she lived until she was 35.

As a teenager, Erin attended James Bowie Junior High and French High School in Beaumont.  During these years, she enjoyed dancing, music, painting, and writing and was inducted into the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls. She also began working at Tyrrell Public Library, a job that brought her great satisfaction and would change her life.  It was there that she met her husband, David Bush, whom she married on January 18, 1963, at her parents’ home in Sour Lake, Texas. Her “always and ever after” man, they were always together, and they shared a bond and love that even David’s death sixty years later could not extinguish.

They settled down in Beaumont, Texas, where both of their children—Andrew (Andy) and Deborah (Debie)—were born. They moved to Devon, Pennsylvania, in 1976, where they lived until 1981, when they relocated permanently to the North Dallas area. While Erin was the consummate queen of hospitality and a doting wife and mother who adored waiting on others and feeding her family and friends alike, she was also a career woman at heart and had an inherent drive to work in business.  In another time, she would no doubt have been CEO of a company. Although she never finished her college degree, one of her regrets in life, she took great satisfaction in doing administrative, accounting, and HR work for a variety of companies until she retired at age 70.

With a heart for serving others, Erin’s dream was to become a nurse. Although that dream was never realized, she devoted her entire life to helping others with acts of kindness both big and small. From welcoming and helping her neighbors to adopting her children’s friends for the holidays and summers to sending cards of encouragement to friends going through hard times, Erin never hesitated to lift up others with her kind words and actions.

Erin maintained her greatest accomplishment and source of pride was her children and grandchildren. She was a mother who invested time in her children and grandchildren, attending countless sporting events, dance recitals, band concerts, and performances; baking cookies; providing wise counsel; and buying small gifts—sometimes years in advance, claiming that “just right” gift “found her.” In addition to spending time with her family, she loved organizing things, beautiful stationary, painting, reading, embroidery, the sound of waves on the beach, Baby Ruth candy bars, and vanilla milkshakes.

Erin’s sweet disposition and sense of humor belied her indomitable spirit, resilience, wisdom, and strength. Despite the time period during which she grew up, she was a fiercely independent woman who didn’t hesitate to speak her mind and who was always true to herself. Although she was never wealthy by society’s standards, she considered herself rich in the things that mattered: a loving husband, a family she adored, a positive outlook, and the opportunity to be of service to others, as evidenced by these stanzas of a poem she wrote:

Life has new things to behold

It is just to find them as to look for gold.

 I shall seek and find though maybe not gold,

So when my voyage through life is at an end

I may look at my treasures and smile at them.

For I may not have gold or even silver

But I shall have something with much more splendor.

Erin is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Andrew and Mendy Bush; daughter, Deborah Dove (Mathew George); grandchildren, Brandon Bush (Caitlin), Carissa Vanover (Shane), Allison Dove, Hayden Dove, and Caroline Dove; great grandchildren, Bennett, Ainslie, and Ella Claire Bush; brothers, Cecil John Wells (Renee) and Donald Wells (Linda); sister Ann Petitjean; and numerous nieces and nephews and friends

A graveside service will be held at 11:00 a.m., Wednesday, January 15, 2024 at Restland Memorial Park, 13005 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75243. 

The family will receive friends during a visitation on Tuesday evening from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. at the funeral home.