Vernette (Smith) Cooksey

Funeral services for Vernette (Smith) Cooksey, age 90 of Tyler, Texas, are scheduled for 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, December 10, 2025, at First Baptist Church of Swan, with Pastor Ronny Cooksey and Deacon Barney Rubin officiating. Family will receive friends from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. prior to the service. Interment will follow at Union Chapel Cemetery in Van, Texas. Vernette went to be with the Lord on Saturday, December 6, 2025, in Tyler. She was born February 6, 1935 in Van, Texas to the late Willie Wesley and Artie (Freeman) Smith. In 1941 they moved to Tyler where Vernette remained a lifelong resident. She was a recent member of Green Acres Baptist Church and previously a longtime member of First Baptist Church of Swan. She was the owner and operator of Bow Street Flower Shop in Tyler until 1960 when she became a full time mother and homemaker. In 1980 she returned to work handling the bookkeeping of her husband’s sheetrock business. Vernette loved springtime flower shopping, especially with her daughter Terri, and enjoyed watching her beautiful flowers grow and blossom. She loved playing dominos, especially Forty-Two, which she learned at a young age while sitting on her daddy’s knee. She enjoyed watching old westerns, all the good old shows on MeTV, and the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers. Cooking for all the holidays and family events – the best cornbread dressing and chicken & dumplings ever, chocolate and coconut pies, German chocolate cakes and her famous homemade pickles. If she wasn’t cooking a wonderful meal, she loved a Texas Roadhouse steak (or her Whataburgers). Her greatest passion was being the mother and best friend to Terri, to whom she taught the true values in life and the importance of trusting in God for everything, big or small. Vernette was preceded in death by her first husband Charles Vere Harvey, Jr.; second husband Raymon Lewis Cooksey; infant child Beverly Ann Martin; brother Jerome Curtis Smith; sister Adell Janette (Smith) Eddins; cousins and many other loving family members and friends. She is survived by her daughters, Terri Harvey of Tyler; Beverly Crosby of Richardson, Texas; Cindy Wink and husband Gary of Anna, Texas; son Ronny Cooksey and wife Kathy of Madisonville, Louisiana; 12 grandchildren; 20 great grandchildren; other family members and many friends. Serving as pallbearers will be Micah Cooksey, Reed Cooksey, Gary Wink, Rob Schneider, Paul Ginn, John Pearson and Stu Boyd. Honorary pallbearers include Terry Perkins, Decker Perkins, Mark Brown, Jerry Turner, and Dennis Phillips. The family would like to express their love and enormous gratitude for the best and most loving caregivers they were fortunate to find in Vernette’s late years - Barbara, Dixie, Margaret, Shirley, Willie Pearl, Karen, DeNarra and Lisa.

Vernette (Smith) Cooksey

February 6, 1935 - December 6, 2025