The funerals of the victims of the Tennessee tornadoes are underway.
Eighteen of the 24 fatalities happened in Putnam County, and the oldest victim was 67.
Her name is Patricia Lane. She was never afraid of speaking her heart or her mind.
That’s one of the qualities her daughter Traci Delk admired.
“She would tell people, ‘You need to sweep your porch,'” Delk told WPLN News on Tuesday. “She would tell them, ‘You know, you need to park straighter.’”
But Lane would also bring gifts to her neighbors’ children for Christmas and their birthdays.
That honesty and kindness will now be missed.
“She just really, really poured everything that she had into her friends, her family and the people that lived in her apartment because she lived there for more 20 years,” Delk said. “People would come and go, but she was always the one that was there.”
After retiring from Red Kap Industries, Delk said her mother spent much of her time at Collegeside Church of Christ in Cookeville.
There she volunteered and helped with the food pantry.
“She smiled a lot,” Jonathan Norris, a church minister, said. “She was – you know how that person, you see them and they just exquisite themselves in their whole persona.”
Norris says Lane often prayed for others and was always reaching out to churchgoers to make sure they were doing all right. And When Norris’s brother died last year, Lane was the first one to send a card.
“That’s what I’d love for people to know about her,” Norris said. “She exemplified the name of Jesus in her actions.”
The victims in Putnam County range from ages 2 to 67.
There’s a lot of destruction in the area. But the community members have come closer and are helping one another.
“This place loves each other and I’ve never seen anything like this, and I think everybody should hope to be like this,” Delk said. “And if you still have your mom, just hug her and call her, tell her you love her because you don’t know if it’s going to be the last.”
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