Dorothy Juanelle Lago

Dorothy Juanelle Lago, 95, passed from this life to her eternal home on December 16, 2025.

Graveside services will be held 10:30 A.M., Tuesday, December 23, 2025, at Sweetwater Cemetery with Family Members officiating. Burial will follow. Arrangements are under the direction of Cate-Spencer & Trent Funeral Home.

Juanelle was born on September 15, 1930, in the Claytonville Community near Sweetwater, Texas. She lived a life of devoted obedience to her Lord Jesus. Juanelle graduated from Hobbs High School, where she played basketball and was named salutatorian of her class. She and her husband, Bill, owned multiple farms in the Nolan and Fisher Counties area, a Ford Tractor dealership in Sweetwater, and Humble, Texaco, and Shell service stations in Snyder, Abilene, and Dallas. As an active partner with a keen mind, Juanelle became a self-taught bookkeeper in these ventures. After Bill’s passing, she went on to have an accomplished career as a bookkeeper for numerous businesses in the Abilene area.

Juanelle’s dedication and love for her family inspired a lifelong passion for genealogy. She spent countless hours in libraries and cemeteries across the U.S. tracing connections with her ancestors. She actively participated in several online genealogical forums and helped many others discover their roots. She even authored the family history in a book titled “Juanelle’s Tales,” where she shared colorful stories of ancestors ranging from convicted criminals to state supreme court justices.

Juanelle was a devout Christian and a lifelong member of the Church of Christ. She was an ardent student of the Bible, even auditing several Bible classes at Abilene Christian University. She joked from time to time that if she had been born a man, she would have been a preacher. In her later years, she spent many hours each day listening to her Bible tapes. Her children have fond memories of her reading to them from Hurlburt’s Storybook of the Bible each evening and quizzing them on what they had read.

She is survived by her three children: Judy M. Coco and her husband, Malcolm, and their children, Kedra Snead and her husband, Josh, and their children Carter Snead and Ella Snead; Scott Coco, and his son Carsen Coco; Lisa L. Dodson and her husband, Phil, and their children, JJ Valdez and his wife, Alisha, Hannah Valdez, Donny Dodson and his wife, Amanda; and Daniel M. Morris and his wife, Mimi, and their children, Paige Morris and Kaleigh Oyler and her husband, Tyson.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Peter Talley (Daddy Pete) and Cecil Talley; and by her two husbands, Billie H. Morris, married in 1948 until his death in 1969, and Richard J. Lago, married in 1972 until his death in 2024.