Reba Ivey Brock died in UAB Hospital Sunday, May 26, 2024 of Acute Renal Failure. With more than twenty-two years of pain and suffering and just days before her death, Reba stated, “You can tell the world I haven’t given up.” True to her core value of service to others, she was an organ donor through the Alabama Tissue Bank.
Funeral services were held at 11:00 A.M. Saturday, June 1, 2024, at Pea River Presbyterian Church with The Reverend Barry Clark and The Reverend Randy Adams officiating. Reba was then laid to rest beside her beloved husband in the Church cemetery, Holman Funeral Home of Ozark directed. The family received friends at the funeral home in Ozark Friday from 5:00 P.M. until 7:00 P.M. and Saturday in the church from 10:00 A. M. until service time.
Reba was born to the late Ralphael Naaman Ivey and Nell Garner Ivey on August 23, 1949 on the Garner family farm of Pea River Road near Ariton, Alabama, and grew up on the Ivey farm near Clio. A graduate of Barbour County High School, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Troy University. Teaching was in her lifeblood- from Head-Start in the summer while she was yet a teenager, to the beginners’ class of her church for more than fifty years, and with the Ozark City Board of Education for thirty-two years.
In her retirement, she remained super-busy: volunteering for Vacation Bible School of churches in addition to her own; giving hour upon hour to the Barbour County High School Heritage Association; working tirelessly as charter member of the Clio Historical and Preservation Society (CHAPS); becoming the unofficial reporter to the local newspaper of Clio organizations of which she was a part. And her sewing machine! How many outfits has she made for the underprivileged, the costumes she has stitched for students’ performances? And the flower beds she tended beside the house she and Charles renovated for their own residence, a house built by his grandfather! The list goes on, but one of her pet projects was the restoration of the Clio train depot, making it into an event venue which she named Function Junction. In addition to her parents, Reba was predeceased by her husband, Charles Purry Brock; her brother, Naaman Drexel Ivey; and brother-in-law, Harold Kendall Smith. She is survived by her sisters, Jeanette Ivey Smith and Ada Jane Ivey (Ken) Langford, and sister-inlaw, Audrey Tyler Ivey; step-daughters, Ruthie (Dwight) Teal and Charlene Brock, and their children; and greatly loved nieces and nephews. Reba’s concern did not stop there as she kept abreast of aunts, uncles, and cousins– treasuring the kinship. She maintained that same loyalty to her friends, whether from the playground as a child, from schooling, professional experiences, wherever. She was not a showy person at all, but her still waters ran deep!
