Grace Carter

Ila Grace Carter was born on July 13, 1928 in

Stillwater, OK to Oscar and Myrtle (Fitzpatrick) Bilyeu.

Grace passed from this life on Tuesday, August 5, 2014

at the age of 86.

Grace was born the youngest of seven children. She

was working as a telephone switchboard operator

(asking “number please”) when she married Earl Carter in

1954. Earl and Grace had met while attending Bethany

Peniel College now known as Southern Nazarene

University. Grace left the telephone company to be a full

time homemaker and raise her four children until the last

one was entering kindergarten. In 1970, Grace started

working for Tulsa Public Schools in the school cafeteria at

Lee, Horace Mann, Barnard, and back to Lee knowing

that she would be off work almost every day her children

were out of school. She returned to being known as a

homemaker and wife and began taking care of her grandchildren

in 1988.

Grace was preceded in death by her husband, Robert

Earl Carter in 2005. She was a member of the Southwest

Church of the Nazarene in Tulsa for many years but in

recent times had been attending the Sapulpa Church of the

Nazarene with her son Richard and his wife Darla.

Grace is survived by her children (in chronological

order), Robert Carter of Tulsa, Alan Carter of Tulsa,

Roberta Hines of Claremore, OK and Richard Carter of

Glenpool, OK and; a brother, Doyle Bilyeu of Bethany,

OK; six grandchildren and four great grandchildren.