Marie Hanson Cole, 81, beloved wife, mother, sister, and friend, died Monday, December 17, 2007.
She lived a life that reflected her love for Christ. She spent her first 78 years in Daphne, living on the same street on which she was born. She worked for many years as a secretary for a real estate firm and then moved on to manage the school cafeterias for Daphne Elementary and Middle Schools where she could be present in the lives of her children. She was always involved in her church at Daphne Baptist, now Bay Shore Baptist, where she sang in the choir, sang duets, and worked faithfully in the kitchen and meal ministry at the church.
At the age of 78, due to increasing blindness, she and her husband moved to Boone, N.C., where she was blessed with a whole new set of friends. For 3 1/2 years she was a blessing to all who knew her, showering her new friends with the same love and concern she had shown to those she had known her whole life.
It was in Boone, N.C., that the Lord called her home.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Edward Emil Hanson and Elizabeth Virginia Calloway Hanson and six siblings, Mildred, Beulah, James, Clayton, Emmett, and Austin. While she will be sorely missed by her family and friends, we rejoice in her homegoing to be with the Lord where we know she has been made whole.
Survivors include her devoted husband, Herbert F. Cole; adoring children, Herbie (Amy) Cole of Daphne and Janet (Jim) Bates of Boone, N.C.; four grandchildren who were the absolute delight of her heart, Alexandra and Jennie Cole, Nathan and Hannah Bates; a very dear twin brother, Marion “Bubba” (Mildred) Hanson of Gulf Shores; her treasured sister-in-law, Christine Hanson of Fairhope, many precious nieces, nephews, and cousins.
Visitation and funeral services were held Wednesday, Dec. 19 at the Austin & Barnes Funeral Home Chapel in Boone, N.C.
Funeral services will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 22 at Bay Shore Baptist Church with the Rev. Alfred Yancey officiating. Visitation will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 21 at Wolfe-Bayview Funeral Home in Daphne. Burial will follow at the church cemetery.
The family requests memorial donations be made to Samaritan’s Purse, Operation Christmas Child, on their website at www.samaritan.org or mailed to PO Box 3000, Boone, NC 28607.
Arrangements are by Austin & Barnes Funeral Home in Boone, N.C., and Wolfe-Bayview Funeral Homes & Crematory Inc., Daphne.
