Constance Joan Meyer

Constance Joan Meyer, 85, was born on December 27, 1937 in St. Paul, Minnesota, to John Paul Luby and Anna Rose Riley.
Connie passed away at home on July 28, 2023 in Arlington, Texas.
Connie was a member of St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in Arlington, Texas and was formerly a long-time member of St. Rita Catholic Church in Ft. Worth, where she was an accomplished lector.
Connie had three sisters and two brothers and remained very close to them until her death. They were her best friends. She always said that she was so grateful to have her siblings while she was growing up since her family moved nearly every year due to her father’s career. They were a built-in support system. She loved the times that she and her siblings spent sibling weekends together as adults, staying up much too late, laughing hilariously, remembering funny family stories, and practicing Spanish.
Connie was always studious and continued her love of learning and reading throughout her life. Her father graduated from MIT and her mother from Radcliff College, so she was surrounded by people who encouraged her education. Her father always commented that she was “a slave to the printed page.” She graduated from Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Dallas in 1955 where she was Homecoming Queen for Jesuit Dallas. Connie earned her first bachelor’s degree from the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. She earned her second bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas at Arlington and later earned her master’s degree and her PhD at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Connie was devoted to her family. She met Kurt, her future husband, working at a summer job at Chance Vought. She used to ride to work with her father. Connie and Kurt William Meyer married in 1960 and were able to spend their honeymoon in Newport, Rhode Island while Kurt completed his Naval officer training. Connie also later worked at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas.
Kurt and Connie had a real- life love story their entire marriage. They looked at each other like there was no one else in the room. They were amazing dancers and would later spend time dancing in the living room with their three daughters, working on disco from Saturday Night Fever to “Do the Hustle” to everything in between. Connie later worked on the Macarena and Gangnam Style with the grandchildren. Connie and Kurt loved traveling and spending time together. Connie especially loved the beaches in New England, and lobster rolls and clams, and the beautiful skies and wildflowers and mountains of New Mexico.
Connie remained a student her entire life. She constantly worked on improving her Spanish by practicing her speaking, listening to Spanish radio, watching telenovelas. She studied in Mexico and even Cuba. She never stopped seeking knowledge. She passed her love of reading down to her daughters, who are also ”slaves to the printed page.” Before going on their many family road trip vacations, she would take the girls to the library where they were only allowed their maximum of 17 books each, which was not nearly enough, according to them. Later, toward the end of her life when she was not able to read, Kurt would read to her every day.
Connie was smart, quick witted, devilishly funny, and often hilarious. She was also kind, compassionate, generous, and very elegant. And she was a great listener. She was thoughtful, introspective, and private.
She was also beautiful until the day she died.
Connie cared deeply about being a mother and grandmother. She researched pregnancy and childbirth, child rearing, parenting and grandparenting with the same passion and attention that she did with her degrees. She was a caring, involved mother to her three daughters and constantly provided them with support and with wise counsel, love, and the tools to be competent, smart, self-sufficient, and independent women. She was the mother that was always home after school, made sure family dinner happened every night without fail, developed, and maintained holiday traditions and rituals that still exist today and now include three grandchildren who were devoted to her. She was the glue that held everything together. She was the backbone of the family. She was a health food fanatic and flossing enthusiast and passionate sunscreen advocate during the 1970s and 1980s when no one else was. She was tough and she was strong in her convictions and did not care about what others thought. One of the many things she told her girls was to always make your own plans. She also reminded them not to wave after age 40.
She stood up for what she felt was the right thing. One of her sons in law said that she lived a big life but didn’t need to take up all the air in the room.
Connie is survived by Kurt, her husband of 63 years, her daughter Kirsten Meyer and son-in-law Randy Hardee and their children, Alexandra Wood, Kurt Hardee, and Jude Hardee; her daughter Alison Barlow and son-in-law Joel and her daughter, Anna Meyer.
A rosary and memorial mass will be held at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church and her ashes will then be buried at the National Cemetery.