Former Texas first lady Rita Crocker Clements remembered in simple Dallas ceremony 

Hers was a life marked by love, purpose and remarkable efficiency, and with her passing, the memorial service for Rita Crocker Clements was no different: Simple, expeditious and uplifting, the way she would have wanted.

"You know how she was," said her son, Jim Bass, as he met outside with mourners afterward. "Chop, chop. It was what she was all about."

On Thursday, a crowd of several hundred gathered at Dallas' St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church to remember Clements, the former Texas first lady and political and civic fireball who died Saturday at 86, from complications of Alzheimer's disease.

In his homily, the Rev. William J.A. Power addressed his first remarks to Clements' four children, who had cared for their mother as she suffered the deteriorating effects of Alzheimer's.

"I salute you for your fidelity to your mother, and for the remarkable display of love and devotion you demonstrated over these last seven years," Power said. "Now the chaos and confusion are over, and both you and your mother are set free from the chains that bound her."

Clements' memorial was free of lengthy eulogies or pomp and circumstance, similar to the service for her husband, two-time Gov. Bill Clements, when he died in 2011.

Instead it was, as Power said, "the same service that would mark the passing of any other member of this congregation" — a straightforward Christian liturgy for the dead, Scripture-heavy and focused on the impermanence of life and the comfort of eternal afterlife.

"O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day our sister Rita," the Rev. Christopher Girata said. "We thank you for giving her to us, her family and friends, to know and to love as a companion on our earthly pilgrimage."

And for Clements, what a forceful and fruitful pilgrimage it was: A former Kansas cowgirl who flowered in grass-roots politics, she went on to chair Texas' get-out-the-vote campaign to re-elect President Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1968 and 1992.

Active in civic, charitable and political circles, including her husband's campaigns, she served on the boards of numerous companies and organizations and pushed for the restoration of the Governor's Mansion in Austin during her husband's first term. She also served as a member of the University of Texas System Board of Regents from 1996 to 2007.

Her penchant for orderliness fueled political and domestic operations conducted with the help of her four children. Power described how Clements employed her children in political campaigns, dropping them off at one end of a neighborhood block, two on one side and two on the other, to go down the street distributing pamphlets before she picked them up at the other end of the block.

"You could cover an awful lot of territory with four children," he said.

Even her closets showed her determined organization — perfectly arranged dresses and shoes in color-coded order, Power said.

"I'd always thought of Rita as supremely organized, sublimely intelligent and a fair-minded, honest lady," he said. "And she knew exactly where everything was. When you're that organized, it gives you more time to do other things you'd like to do."

After the service, Bass — Clements' son from her previous marriage to Richard D.  Bass — laughed about a story Power related about how Clements would do several weeks' worth of shopping at Tom Thumb. Once again, the children were marshaled, dispatched throughout the store with specific orders, each with a shopping cart.

"He said four carts, but it was more like seven or eight," Bass said. "She'd make her lists, like 110 pounds of beef or whatever, and have us going up and down those aisles."

Her younger brother, the Rev. Byron Crocker of Beaumont, remembered Clements as a nurturing, supportive sister who'd taught him how to drive. He recalled how Clements, having just emerged from her first wedding, tossed him the keys to her yellow convertible and said, "It's all yours."

"She was the best sister I could have ever had," he said.

Others in attendance included Dallas Morning News publisher and CEO Jim Moroney, Clements' son-in-law and husband to her twin daughter Barbara.

"Today, Rita joins Bill in the arms of eternal life," Power said, "and for that we all give thanks."

CORRECTION, 8:30 p.m., Jan. 11: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Rita Clements' first husband. She was previously married to Richard D. Bass.