Mrs. Mollie M. Lester, 88, of Cedartown redeemed her faith on Thursday, May 4. She died in her bed, with her children at her side, after a sudden illness and decline of three weeks.
Mollie was born on August 31, 1934 in Polk County. She attended Benedict School and graduated from Cedartown High School in 1951, the last class to have only eleven grades. On January 27, 1952 she married the love of her life, Cecil Lester, and they shared more than 64 years until death parted them in May 2016.
When she was still an infant, Mollie and her mother Della Mae moved in with Mollie’s grandparents, her mother’s father and step-mother, Vestal (Red) and Susie Runyon Turkett. Mollie was the first grandchild, and she arrived in their home as Vestal and Susie were adding to their family. While her mother worked to support them, Susie cared for Mollie and raised her with her four children and Vestal’s boys whose mother had died. Della Mae was “Mother,” and Vestal and Susie were “Daddy and Mama.”
An only child, Mollie never felt like one, as the Turkett kids were more sisters and brothers to her than aunts and uncles. Known by her middle name to the Turketts, as her cousins were born they called her “Aunt Mae.” Now a few generations down the line, she’s still Aunt Mae to all the grands and great-grands, and no one remembers that she’s really their distant cousin. Mollie had nothing but good memories of her childhood and was quick to correct anyone who tried to mischaracterize it, “I didn’t come from a broken home. I came from Daddy and Mama’s home. I didn’t miss out on any loving from parents.”
Her Mama was her idol. She often said “If I can learn to love like Mama, I’ll be a success. Mother loved me dearly, but she loved me because I was hers. Mama loved me because she wanted to.”
Before her children were born, Mollie worked at Cummings and Martin Furniture Store in Cedartown. After her youngest started school, she returned to work as a teacher’s aide at her children’s school, Benedict Elementary, eventually becoming the school secretary. When the Cedartown-area county schools merged to form Westside Elementary, Cedar Lake principal Eddie Starnes was named to lead the new school and asked her to join his staff as his secretary.
On the day Westside opened, students began their day at their old schools and were moved during the school day to the new building. Mollie literally turned out the lights at Benedict and locked the doors for the final time before reporting to her new office. She was frightened to work for a new principal and at such a big school, but no one ever knew it. Mollie’s love for people, and her special love for children, endeared her to all those she served. A natural “mother hen,” she mothered not only the school’s 700 plus students, but also their parents who were often more frightened than their little ones about their school experience. And she didn’t stop there.
Many young teachers—as well as a principal or two—were mothered as well, with Mollie making sure they knew how to get along and succeed with their administrative duties to the school and to the central office. She was never shy about telling people what they needed to do, but it was always done with such love and genuine concern that the instructions were almost always received with heartfelt gratitude.
The love that Mollie doled out during her Westside years was returned to her a thousandfold. When you take care of people when they are frightened and vulnerable, they never forget you. A trip to Walmart or Kroger could take half a day if you went with Mollie. Her hugs were legendary, and she seldom spoke to anyone without also pulling them in for a warm embrace. In later life, a trip to the doctor or the hospital almost always resulted in drop ins—and hugs—from nurses and other staff who were “Westside kids” and had seen her name on the patient list.
But as much as she loved her work, Mollie’s passion was her family. She and Cecil were fiercely devoted to each other and were the storybook picture of lovebirds up to their final days together. She loved raising her children, throwing herself into all of their activities. She was a room mother, a Girl Scout leader, class trip chaperone and the ultimate 4-H volunteer leader. Whether it was making cupcakes for a class party or washing pigs at the county fair, Mollie was always right in the middle of things. And way before the days of Instagram, she was documenting it all with snapshots.
She didn’t become Granny Mollie until she was sixty years old, but her two grandkids, Jade and Caleb, got the full grandparent experience from her. They were her joy! She attended every school activity and was their biggest cheerleader. When granddaughter Jade lost her mother at age twelve, at Cecil’s insistence (“because a twelve year old girl needs a mother”), Jade came to live with them. When Mollie was well into her seventies, she was an active CHS band parent, even traveling with them on school buses to events. She and Cecil loved having the friends of their grands at their home, hosting bonfires and cookouts for teens on their farm until they were pushing eighty.
Not surprisingly, all those young people call her Granny Mollie. The month she turned eighty-five, Mollie finally became a great-grandmother with the arrival of Addison Mae Lester. She loved Addi Mae with everything she had and treasured every visit when she could see all the new things “her baby” had learned.
Mollie’s love for her savior was unwavering. She grew up in, and was baptized at, Young’s Grove Baptist Church. In the late 1970’s she and Cecil joined Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in Rockmart, and until the pandemic and a number of debilitating falls limited her ability to attend, she was an active member. Her desire was to be remembered as a Christian woman. As one who daily practiced Jesus’s commandment to love your neighbor, we believe that she is assured of that legacy.
Growing up in a musical family, Mollie always loved to sing, especially gospel songs. She was a member of the choir at Calvary, and for many years sang in the Polk County Senior Choir. A lot of babies on both sides of her family have been sung to sleep by what she called her “hardshell songs.” Thursday morning, her children played some of her favorite songs for her. Just as “Swing Wide the Gates” ended, she exhaled her final breath.
In addition to her beloved husband Cecil, Mollie was preceded in death by her mother and stepfather, Della Mae and Leroy Richardson; her grandparents A. V. and Susie Turkett; her “second son” Ricky Sanders; Jade’s mother Stacy Gilley; and the dearest friends she and Cecil ever had, Margie and Billy Holbrooks. She is survived by: her daughter Donya Lester, her son Barry Lester, and her “adopted daughter” Wanda Brannan, all of Cedartown; grandchildren Jade Lester of Atlanta and Caleb Lester of Cedartown; great-granddaughter Addison Mae Lester and her mother Kailey Allmon of Cedartown.
Funeral services will be held at 2:00 PM on Sunday afternoon, May 7, at Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, 160 Springdale Road, Rockmart, with Rev. Levi Wyatt officiating. Interment will follow at Northview Cemetery, Cedartown, with Bro. William Collins officiating. Mollie will lie in repose for one hour prior to the funeral.
Pallbearers are: James Smith, Charles Soles, Michael Robinson, Bart Rushing, Jose Nevarez, Bob Tracy, Tyler Golden, Scott Dingler and Barry Dingler.
Visitation will be from 5:00 to 7:00 PM Saturday evening, May 6, at Gammage Funeral Home.
Flowers will be accepted, but the family strongly encourages that memorials for Mollie be made to Ferst Readers of Polk County which provides monthly age-appropriate books to children from birth to age five, along with other literacy resources for their families. Envelopes will be available at the funeral home or donations can be made at www.ferstreaders.org, be sure to select Polk County, GA from the drop down menus as the program you wish to support.
If you wish to mail a check, send to:
Ferst Readers of Polk County
P. O. Box 172
Rockmart, GA 30153
Messages of condolences can be made to the family by visiting our website and signing the online guestbook at gammagefh.com.
The Olin L. Gammage and Sons Funeral Home is handling the arrangements for Mrs. Mollie Mae Lester.
