Mary Ruth Robinson Nickell passed away July 25, 2019 at Alive Hospice in Nashville from complications of a stroke. She was 87.

Born in Lenoir City, Tennessee, a daughter of Nelle Lebow and Samuel Doyle Robinson, she graduated from Lenoir City High School in 1949. Thereafter, she attended Andrew Jackson Business College in Nashville, returning home to a secretarial position at First Baptist Church, where she met a handsome young ministerial student, Joseph Travis Nickell. They married in 1952, and thus began her journey with him, supporting his ministerial calling, as he earned degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Their moves would take them to serve churches in Memphis, Tennessee; Monticello, Kentucky; Crossville, Tennessee; and, finally, Maryville, Tennessee, where they chose to stay in retirement. When her children reached school age she worked as a library aid in the Cumberland County School System, then upon relocating to Maryville, in The College of Education at The University of Tennessee.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 61 years, Joseph Travis Nickell, her parents, and by brothers Elwood, Glenn, Carl, Jim, Joe, Jack, and a sister Agnes. She is survived by her sons, Tim and wife, Pat, of Franklin, Tennessee, Mark and his wife, Kaye, also of Franklin, and daughter LuAnne Nickell Prevost of Knoxville, Tennessee, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held Saturday, August 3, 2019 at Fairfield Baptist Church in Centerville, Tennessee, at 12:00 P.M., with receiving of friends beginning at 11:00 A.M. Interment will follow at the Charles L. Nickell Memorial Park which is adjacent to the church. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren will serve as Pallbearers.

Memorials may be made to The Pat Summitt Foundation, 520 W. Summit Hill Drive, Suite 1101, Knoxville, TN 37902, to help fight Alzheimer’s disease.