The woman that spoke with Art said she was 40. And was married to a guy.
She might not have been a lesbian when she died. That might have been clumsy wording where it says her son John and wife Emily. Emily might be John’s wife.
I just looked it up, she was on C2C with Bell a few weeks before her 42nd birthday, assuming the DoB in the obit is correct. She could have fudged a year. You are likely correct about the wording, Emily was almost certainly her son's wife. That would also account for her telling Bell she was married (to a guy), a fact I overlooked as her late husband is mentioned in the obit as having preceded her in death. My apologies to Ms Turnage and her family/friends.
So would a Baptist church, or even a public school system, in rural Texas accept a teacher who wrote books claiming the Bible was an extraterrestrial transmission? The church probably only if she "renounced her past work," the school only if she didn't advertise her affiliation to them. Considering no bio I could find mentioned her day job or even her degree(s), and she wrote using her initials vice given first/middle name, I think the author and the woman in the obit are one and the same.