Lula - Thrice Widowed - Killing Albert Berch

: Lula Reynolds as her grandchildren remember her (1958), with her cocker spaniel “Taffy.” Lula’s third husband, Harry Reynolds, died in 1947, only a few months before the birth of the first grandchild, Susan Hollingsworth. (from the Hollingsworth family collection)

: October, 1958 – In perhaps our most classic photograph of Lula, she is shown here with her dog “Taffy” emerging from her new “storm cave,” recently installed in front of her Oklahoma City home on 27th street. The flat concrete top of her storm shelter became a front porch with a horizontal doorway in its middle (from the Hollingsworth family collection)

: By November, 1959, Lula had surrounded the bare concrete of the “storm cave” with bricks to complete the unique front porch project. Circa 2010, all the houses on this block were bulldozed to allow expansion of the Oklahoma City University campus. Today, a well hit home run by the OCU Stars over the left field fence is likely to land near the site of Lula’s storm cave (from the Hollingsworth family collection)

: Sisters-in-law — Mittie Combs on the left and Lula Berch Reynolds on the right in the 1960s. Mittie Knight married Lula’s only brother, (William) Fred Combs, who died of cancer at age 58. Mittie would live to the age of 102, widowed for 46 years. Lula lived to age 98, thrice-widowed, living 35 years after the death of her third husband. The two women shared the trauma on the night of the murders, December 17, 1923. Fred and Mittie were the only other family members living in Marlow at the time. In their later years, when old age prevented travel between Elmore City and Oklahoma City, the two women corresponded frequently by letter. Although Lula was the oldest of five, she outlived all of her siblings, while sister-in-law Mittie lived another 10 years after Lula. (from the Hollingsworth family collection)

: Lula Combs Garvin Berch Reynolds (undated photo). Lula felt it important for both her and her daughter Almarian to have a studio portrait made every year, yet most of these portraits in the family collection are undated (from the Hollingsworth family collection)

: Lula Reynolds in 1976, at the age of 92, still working and still having portraits made. (from the Hollingsworth family collection)

: After the death of her third husband, Harry Reynolds, Lula remained very active in real estate, usually purchasing apartment houses or duplexes, then renting or renovating for a sale. In what she considered her greatest transaction, in 1949, she bought the Avon Hotel in Guthrie, Oklahoma, then flipped it in two weeks for a $4,000 profit (from the Hollingsworth family collection)

: Lula’s early business cards used the “Lula” spelling, but later on, it would be “Lulu.” Also, note the address 1807 N.W. 27th, as opposed to the 1805 used more frequently in the book. Lula converted the house into a duplex early on, living mostly on the 1807 side.

: August 12, 1975 – Lula makes the front page of the Oklahoma City Times, having discovered a murder victim in one of her apartments. The caption beneath the photo reads: “Lula Reynolds, 91, tells officers of finding body.” As described in the book, Lula was still actively dealing in real estate at the time, and she would face even more traumas before her retirement.

: Lula and grandson (1980) – the author visits Lula after her long and complicated recovery from a broken hip the year prior. Lula would live another two years after this photo was taken. At this time, the author was about the same age as when his grandfather, Albert Berch, was murdered (from the Hollingsworth family collection)