Loretta (Howard) Masters

Loretta Howard Porter Masters departed from this life on the evening of July 29, 2026, just a few weeks shy of her 95th birthday, she will be greatly missed by her family and friends.

She was born on September 8, 1931, in Ste. Genevieve, Mo, to John Wesley and Norma Lee Jenkins Howard.  She was next to the youngest of a “baker’s dozen” of children. John and Norma, natives of Johnson Co., Illinois, as a young couple they moved first to Southeast Missouri after the birth of their second child in 1912 to homestead on the recently cleared swamplands in Scott and New Madrid Counties. After the birth of the next six children and the death of two of their eight children, one to Malaria which was rampant in the area, as well as, as the collapse of the economy post-World War.  Loretta’s parents moved the remaining family to Ste. Genieve County where Loretta’s father became a foreman at the Mississippi Lime Kiln. He and Norma added four more children to their family, and they lived in Ste. Genevie and the Perryville area for the rest of their lives. Besides continuing as foreman at the Lime Kiln into the late 1950’s John and Norma and their younger children including Loretta lived on farms in the Perryville area where they move to when Loretta finish second grade. She continued her schooling in Perryville and was active in several Perryville High School organizations including playing clarinet and being a majorette in the band. She graduated in 1948. She also helped her mother raise chickens and take care of the other animals since her dad continued as foreman at the Lime Kiln. After high School she met and married Robert Lee Porter. They married when she was 18 years old and after they had two sons moved to Sikeston, Mo.  Loretta after years of being a waitress in Perryville, when she arrived in Sikeston, she applied at the Potlatch factory in Sikeston, Mo, now TetraPak and retired after 26 years as an inspector and very active union representative including negotiations to raise the workers’ wages. She was a small woman, but was described years ago as a force to be reckoned with by members of management, who were on the other side of the table during labor negotiations, she was known to be very vocal. She was also active in the Concordia Lutheran Church while her two sons were growing up in Sikeston.

 In 1979 she and her second husband, Everett M. Masters, bought farmland shortly before retirement in Bollinger County. After moving to the farm and upon retiring she started her next career in childcare, first as a foster mother then in 1986-87 as a babysitter. Seeing the local need for childcare in just a few years she opened her own in-home daycare and kept up to 10 children at a time from infancy and beyond. Being a real go-getter, who enjoyed cleaning, Loretta applied for and got the contract to clean the ASC/ Soils and Water building in the 1990’s and worked there until she was about 85 years old. Once when visiting her grandson in the hospital, she was caught using a cleaning cloth and disinfected spray to clean the landline telephones.  She was the Sunday school teacher at the Lutesville Presbyterian Church beginning in 1987 for the next 20 years. She enjoyed attending the adult Sunday school classes at the Marble Hill United Methodist Church each Sunday, after she finished teaching the children at the Presbyterian Church.

Loretta was preceded in death by her parents, all her siblings, and both husbands.

She is survived by her two sons: Robert Lee Porter (Sheila), Marble Hill, Mo. and Michael Leroy Porter (Debi), Kelso, Mo.

Three Grandchildren: Christopher Michael Porter, Elizabeth Ann Medrano (Matthew), and Sarah Elizabeth Porter

She also enjoyed meeting all six of her great-grandchildren: Andrew Jayson Porter, Audrey Jane Shepard, Betty June Porter, Lakota Medrano, Everett Michael Porter, and Eiza Grace Medrano.

Visitation will be held from 1:00-2:00 pm, the funeral service will follow at 2:00 on Thursday, August 6, 2026.  Pastor Matthew Berry of the Concordia Lutheran Church in Sikeston will be officiating at the Pendergrass Funeral Home in Marble Hill, Missouri.  Following the service, she will be laid to rest in the Hurricane Fork Cemetery next to her husband of just over 50 years, Everett Marion Masters who passed away at the age of 97 in January 2025.

 In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Concordia Lutheran Church ADA upgrades.

Memorial contributions may be sent to:

Concordia Lutheran Church

836 Park Ave.

Sikeston, MO 63801