Brilla June Aderholt Lucas was born March 29, 1932, during a late season snow storm, on a farm east and north of Roll, Oklahoma to Fred Aderholt and Lorene Elizabeth Spear Aderholt.
Two years later her parents purchased the farm across road where she and her older brother Jack would grow up on a sandy 160 acres with a soft water creek. Which Brilla said was a wonderful place to grow up. She started school in 1937 at the Breezy Meadow school. She started a year early because her father was on the school board and the district barely had enough kids to remain open. As a young girl she accepted Christ and was baptized in the Breezy Meadow Baptist Church. Because of labor shortages during the WW2, her mother Lorene would return to teaching. While her dad and brother remained on the farm, Lorene & Brilla moved to Strong City where her Mom taught Elementary school. After the war they return home and she finished grade school at Breezy Meadow. She went to high school at Crawford and graduated in the class of 1951.
After graduating from high school she moved to Cheyenne and began to work for Minnie Slief at the abstract office. She described working for Miss Minnie as the equivalent of going to business school because of the methodical and exacting way she trained her staff and ran her business. While working in Cheyenne she boarded with her future in-laws Fred and Gertrude Lucas. And would catch the eye of their son Thurman (Ike) Lucas.
In 1953 Ike would be drafted into the US Army for two years and leave Lucas & Son Produce.
About then Brilla and a couple of her high school girl friends would move to Oklahoma City to successfully find jobs.
Ike would return from the Army in 1954 and they would be married on May 1, 1955 at the Baptist minister’s parsonage in Reydon. After living & working for a brief time in Oklahoma City, they moved to the OD Lucas homestead to farm & dairy. In 1956 daughter Carol Earlene was born followed by son Frank Dean in 1960. April of 1960 would bring a tragic fire on the farm resulting in the loss of Carol, keeping Ike in the hospital until summer of that year and Brilla being hospitalized until January of 1961. She always said that without Ike’s Aunt Flo & Uncle Lee Cole’s calm effective first aid and Dr Buster & his wonderful staff they would all have been lost. And both were forever appreciative of the neighbors & family who kept the farm & dairy operating during that long difficult summer.
For for all the pain and sorrow of 1960, 1961 would bring new hope with the birth that fall of daughter Julie Ann. The rest of the decade of the sixties would be a period of rebuilding. Ike liked to tell the of how Brilla wanted a new car so he bought her 25 Holstein steer baby calves to raise.
She bottle fed them & raised 24 of them successfully. Those steers purchased the first brand new Ford Mustang delivered to the dealer in Cheyenne 1964! In 1970 she went to work at Security State Bank, working in the check processing department. Ike started Cheyenne Lumber & Steel in 1977 and in 1980 she would leave the Bank to work full time at the lumberyard. Ultimately the couple would sell the business to the Tidwells in 1984 to retire back to farm.
The 1980’s & 1990’s were a time of travel & adventure. Ike’s health declined in his seventies & she would have both hips & a knee replaced. After he passed in 2011, Brilla would stay close to home & family. She would continue to live by herself until a fall & broken leg led to her health failing and passing on May 15 in the Roger Mills Memorial Hospital at the age 88 years. Brilla was preceded in passing by her parents Fred and Lorene Aderholt, older brother Jack Aderholt, daughter Carol Lucas and husband Thurman (Ike) Lucas.
She is survived by son Frank Lucas his wife Lynda, daughter Julie O’Neal her husband Randy, grandchildren Jessica Bentley her husband Steven, Ashlea Yager her husband Nehemiah, Grant Lucas, Caitlin O’Neal and John O’Neal. Great grandchildren Lauren McDaniel, Arie Bentley, Tristan Yager, Will Bentley and Cora Yager. She will be laid to rest between Ike & Carol in the Silent Home Cemetery in Roll. Even as she survived the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, the tragic fire and all the other struggles of her lifetime she maintained a calm, quiet, reserved disposition. Loved her family, maintained her faith in the Lord and when asked would always respond with the simple truth.