Calhoun County AlArchives Obituaries.....Ayers, Willie Minora "Minnie" Skelton January 21, 1935
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Evie Whitfield http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005876 July 31, 2009, 2:33 pm

Atlanta Journal  Jan. 21, 1935
Mrs. T. W. Ayers Beloved Mission Worker, Is Dead.
Prominent Atlantan Will Be Buried Saturday At Anniston, Ala.


Mrs. Minnie Skelton Ayers, 72, wife of Dr. T. W. Ayers, veteran medical
missionary of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in
China, died Thursday morning at the residence, 1013 Ponce de Leon Avenue, N.E.,
following a lingering illness. Dr. and Mrs. Ayers have made Atlanta their home
since retirement from active service in China where they spent their lives.
Funeral services will be held Saturday morning at the Druid Hills Church at 10
o'clock, conducted by Dr. Louie D. Newton. Burial will follow in Anniston, Ala.,
where two of her sons are buried. Awtry & Lowndes are in charge of funeral
arrangements.
Dr. O. P. Gilbert, Dr. James W. Merritt, Dr. J. B. Lawrence, Dr. T. J. Tippett,
Dr. W. H. Faust, Dr. G. J. Davis, Dr. E. E. Steele and E. S. Preston will serve
as pallbearers.
The Baptist ministers of Georgia and the executive officers of the Women's
Missionary Union of Georgia will furnish escorts of honor.
Mrs. Ayers, affectionately known as "Mother Ayers" was born in Anniston, Ala. in
1863. Early in life her family moved to Hartwell, where she attended school. She
married Dr. Ayers while he was editor of the Franklin County Register at
Carnesville. Later they moved to Hartwell where he was editor of the Hartwell
Sun and then to Anniston where he began his career as a physician and surgeon.
From Anniston they went to China as medical missionaries, spending the major
part of their lives in Hwang Hsien, Shantung.
Mrs. Ayers was regarded as the mother at all the missionaries on the field and
found her highest joy in conducting "open house" at all times, both for
missionaries and other American and British friends in China. Their children
were born in China and attended Chine schools until they were old enough to
return to the states for their college training.
Mrs. Ayers was an active member of the Druid Hill Baptist Church and until her
recent illness was constantly at work in the missionary enlistment program of
the Baptist denomination. She was conversant with the various mission fields of
the world and conducted a wide correspondence not only with Baptist
missionaries, but represents of other denominations. She received many tokens of
appreciation from native Chinese.
She is survived by her husband and five children. Mrs. E. J. Lyman, Ft. Benning;
Mrs. Lucy Ayers Henry, Atlanta; Mrs. M. V. Gannon, Ft. Sill, Okla.; Colonel
Harry M. Ayers, editor of the Anniston Ala. Star, and Dr. Emmett Ayers, medical
missionary in China, and a number of grandchildren.


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