Oma Church

Oma Waller was born and raised in Collin County, outside Dallas, Texas, and even as child she was interested in clothes. Old pictures reveal a well-dressed little girl and then a young woman in very high heels. She was anxious to get to the bright lights of a bigger city and she enrolled in TWU in the early 1940s. She majored in early childhood education but financial hardships forced her drop out her senior year. She got a job in Dallas at Hexter Title Company and worked there her entire professional career, running their North Dallas office for over 35 years. She retired in early 1980s and enjoyed traveling, with her husband Jim Church, and of course pouring over fashion magazines, getting ideas for her impeccably custom- tailored pants suits—which she was still doing until age 98. Mrs. Church passed away in 2017 at the age of 99. The scholarship is created by her daughter, Mary Church. Per the donor wishes and intent, the fund’s express purpose is to provide a stream of funding to support a scholarship in the Department of Fashion and Textiles at Texas Woman’s University to be given annually to an undergraduate student.