Lila Meyer

Lila Grant Meyer was born Lila Jo Grant on January 26, 1925, in a rural farmhouse near Dixon, Kentucky, in Webster County, the oldest of four siblings to parents Joseph Stanley Grant (1903-1961) and Mary Magdalene Maxwell Grant (1907-1994), a farming family living in the country.  Joe Grant had hogs, pigs, cows, chickens, and horses, and grew crops of corn, barley, wheat, and tobacco for taking to markets in nearby towns to sell for the farm’s support.

Her other siblings were brother Hugh Max Grant, born 1930, sister Marilyn Grant, born 1932, and sister Betty Sue Grant, born 1937.  Of her siblings, only the youngest, Betty, is still living.  Hugh M. Grant died 2017, and Marilyn died 2003.

Lila graduated from Dixon High School in 1943 and began a two-year teaching job in a one-room schoolhouse in Dixon.  In the fall of 1945, she moved to Evansville, Indiana to attend Evansville College, where she met her first husband, John Austin Long, born November 2, 1922, and died February 6, 2011.  They moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, and had four children, Donald John Long, born August 9, 1947; Bonita Lila Long, born August 19, 1948, and died January 23, 2015; Robert Gene Long, born August 7, 1950; and Kenneth Glenn Long, born June 3, 1952, in Los Angeles, California and died August 27, 2008.  John and Lila had moved to California in 1951 and divorced in 1965.  During that time her husband John was a maintenance manager at North American Aviation in El Segundo, in Los Angeles County, California.  She was a housewife and mother until 1955 when she began work at Paper Mate Pen Company, and in 1956, began her 30-year career selling Avon Cosmetics from home.

Lila worked at North American Aviation (which became North American Rockwell later) in the 1960s, where she met her second husband, Caesar Oscar Meyer, aka Chuck Meyer, born March 23, 1918, in Nordheim, Texas; an Aerospace engineer working under contract to NASA on the U.S. Space Program beginning in 1962.  From a satellite launch in 1962, he was promoted to Reliability Engineer on the Gemini Astronaut program from 1963 to 1966, and then the Apollo Moon Missions from 1966 to 1973.  He also then worked on Skylab Space Station in 1973-1974, from the North American Rockwell Autonetics Division in Anaheim, California (having moved from its Downey, California location in 1970).

Lila met Chuck at North American Aviation Aerospace Autonetics Division in Downey, California where she worked as a document control clerk, and he worked as a Reliability Engineer on the NASA Space Program.  They were married on July 2, 1966, in Palm Desert, California and celebrated 44 years of marriage together in New Braunfels, Texas on July 2, 2010.  They both retired from their careers at the end of 1975, and in early 1976 moved to his boyhood home in Seguin, Texas where they lived a comfortable retirement, and bought two custom-built homes in Seguin from 1988 to present.  Chuck Meyer passed away at Christmas, December 25, 2010, and Lila lived on for a year in their home before moving to Edmonds, Washington to live with her daughter Bonnie who was dying from cancer.  Bonnie passed away in January 2015, and Lila moved back to Seguin to share the family home with her oldest son Don who would be her caregiver thereafter.

In her final years 2015 to 2022, she suffered from blindness and dementia. She passed away from complications due to an internal blockage on Monday, January 24, 2022, two days short of her 97th birthday.

Obituary by her son Donald John Long, on January 26, 2022.

Visitation will be held at Goetz Funeral Home on Tuesday, February 1, 2022 from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Funeral Services officiated by Pastor Brahm French will be held at Goetz Funeral Home on February 2, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. Interment will follow at San Geronimo Cemetery.