James C. Elmore, known to friends and family as Pete, passed away at home, with loved ones, on Wednesday evening, April 13, 2016. Pete was married to his high school sweetheart, Virginia Adams, for 65 years prior to her passing in June 2011. Pete and Virginia were avid motor home enthusiasts starting in 1971 having traveled to all of the lower 48 states and by air to Alaska and Hawaii. They also enjoyed playing 42 with their group on Tuesday nights for many years. In their last few years their best days were spent with their beloved dog known as Curly. Pete always said that if you looked under the dictionary under the word dog, you would see a picture of Curly.

Pete was born on December 1, 1927 in the northwest corner of Louisiana in a town called Trees City on Caddo Lake oil field. Trees City was known for being one of the first areas to build an offshore oil rig with platforms and oil pumps in water.

Pete was extremely proud of his work career and talked about it often. His career started at age 12 gathering oil field and gasoline plant scrap iron to be hauled to a buyer. In the summer of 42 in Rodessa, LA, he worked in a store grading white potatoes and sacking them for shipment. That same summer he chopped cotton for $.30/hour and said the farmer still owed him $.90 for the 3 hours he worked.

Pete continued with various odd jobs to include dismantling crashed B 24 airplanes at Ellington Air Force Base for scrap metal, running memo and ditto machines for the teachers at La. Tech, cleaning film at the library and running the projector, cleaning school windows, and serving food in the cafeteria.

After college graduation from Louisiana Tech at age 21 in Mechanical Engineering, Pete went to work for a major natural gas transmission pipeline company with pipelines running from Texas to Boston, Mass. and from west Texas to California. He worked for the same company for 40 years retiring from the main office in Houston as general manager of several departments.

Pete is survived by his son James C. Elmore, Jr. and wife Kathleen Elmore. Daughter, Belinda Elmore Ralston and husband Wallace Gordon Ralston. He is also survived by three grandchildren, grandson, Dylan Jamison Elmore, wife Sunny, granddaughter Dr. Holly Elmore German, husband Scott German, and grandson Kyle Lee Elmore. Pete also has two great grandchildren, Emily Elmore and Aria German.

Pete cherished all of his friends and spoke often of how important they were to him and how much each of them had enriched his life. On behalf of my dad, I would like to thank you all for being a part of his life.

Service will be held at Kingwood Funeral Home On Saturday April 23, 2016 stating at 10 am with a visitation, then a funeral service at 11 am followed by a reception at noon. Please visit Kingwoodfuneralhome.com for all information.