Minnie McGhee PAXTON was born at Wise, Va., Nov. 5, 1872. Her father, Rev. Frank P. McGHEE, was a Methodist preacher from whom she inherited a love for her church.
She was married to Rev. John Moore PAXTON, at Morristown, Tenn., by Dr. R. N. Rice, Oct. 5, 1892, and, with her husband, attended Conference the following week at Wytheville, Va. She went, that year, with her husband to Concord, W. Va., to begin the career of homemaker and preacher’s wife in which she continued during thirty- three years of the effective ministry of her husband and for the six additional years of superannuation.
Seven children were born to these devoted parents. John Moore PAXTON, Jr., their eldest son, died from wounds, received in France, while serving in the army of the United States.
After the retirement of her husband, and more especially since his death, she had given her life to work with the American Legion. During the last three years of her life she was American Legion Auxiliary Chaplain for the State of Maryland. Like a mother she visited the sick and wounded in government hospitals, seeing that all the wants of the needy were supplied. Indeed the boys in the hospitals came to call her “Mother.”
Mrs. Paxton died at Laurel, Maryland, on June 10, 1939. Brief services were held at Laurel, after which the body was taken to Emory, Va., to be laid by the side of her husband who had preceded her ten years ago.
Mrs. Paxton is survived by four daughters: Mrs. Charles W. Lethcoe, Damascus, Va.; Mrs. Sally Ashley, Laurel, Md.; Mrs. C. E. Ayres,Towson, Md.; Mrs. W. H. James Baltimore, Md.; and by two sons:Robert W. Paxton, Baltimore, Md.; and Kenneth G. Paxton, Savannah, Georgia. — P. P. MARTIN.
Source: Methodist Episcopal Church. Official Journal of the Holston Annual Conference of the Methodist Church. 1940.
