Obituaries: Henretta Johnson Thames, 1950, Winn Parish, LA. Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From: December 1, 1950 Winnfield News-American Grandmother Thames, 94, Pioneer of Winn, Dies In Mt. Zion Community Funeral services for Mrs. Henretta Johnson Thames, 94 years, 4 months, and 13 days of age, were held Saturday afternoon, November 18, in the Union Hill Baptist Church, with the pastor, Rev. Jerry Green in charge, assisted by Rev. H. J. Mott of Winnfield and Judge Cas Moss, a lifetime friend of the family. Interment was in the Mt. Zion Cemetery. One of the oldest Baptists in Louisiana, she was one of the founders of Union Hill Baptist Church 75 years ago. She came from a distinguished family. Her father, a pioneer Rapides Parish physician, served in the Confederate Army and her grandfather was a surgeon in the War of 1812. Her youngest son, Dr. Thomas E. Thames, was a prominent physician of Memphis, Tenn., and for some time a member of the faculty of the University of Tennessee Medical College. While in her teens, she married the late Charley Thames of Pineville and they came by steamboat to Winn Parish and joined hands with the early settlers of the Mt. Zion community, who with ax and the plow, were attempting to build a community in a section where the future had been blighted by the ravages of war. She and her husband who helped to build the present Baptist and Methodist churches at Mt. Zion and the first public school there and for over half a century were identified with every progressive movement for the upbuilding of their community and country. She possessed an exceptionally brilliant mind and a wonderful memory to the last. During her lifetime she saw modern machinery take the place of the spinning wheel and hand loom, with which she labored as a child, and the fast train and automobile and the jet plane replace the steamboat and the ox cart and saw her country engaged in five wars. She remembered General William T. Sherman when he was President of the State Seminary at Pineville, and the day he resigned to enter the Union Army. She saw General Banks' gunboats when they came up Red River in 1863. She was the last surviving member of her immediate family, her husband and four children preceding her in death several years ago. After the death of her eldest son, Henry, who died in 1940, Mr. and Mrs. Mooty and their family took care of her and looked after her as if she was their own mother. To this fine Christian lady, and her family, the entire community is most grateful. A devout Christian, kind and sympathetic and possessing much native ability in caring for the ill, she was always there helping, when trouble, illness, and death came to those she knew, present at the birth and death of scores of her loved ones, hundreds of men and women in all walks of life, will always cherish and love the name of Grandmother Thames. A homecoming to Mt. Zion Community was never complete until they had gone by to see her. The late Dr. S. C. Fittz, who was reared near her, said of her a short while before his death, "If I were called upon to select the most outstanding citizen of Winn Parish during my time, I think I would name Grandmother Thames. I have seen her work in the fields all day and sit up until midnight making clothing for some orphan child so they could attend school. I have seen her walk miles and stand over a sick neighbor all night. I have seen her holding a new born infant in her arms blowing the breath of life into its body. I have seen her close many eyes in death, and then go home and make the shrouding for them. Only a few years ago I was attending one of her neighbors and to my surprise there she was, 80, standing over the bed of that sick neighbor. I tried to persuade her to go home and rest but she refused saying, 'this is all I have to live for, helping those who need me.'" Truly a great woman has gone to her reward. Mrs. Thames leaves no relatives. Pallbearers were J. C. Cardozier, Wilburn Shaw, Johnny Bishop, M. C. Mooty, William Henry Mooty, and Bryant Gordon.