Myrtle Mooring Watson

Services, officiated by the Reverend William David Butts, will be held Saturday, January 4 at 11:00 A.M. at Thomas Yelverton Funeral Service with interment following at Evergreen Memorial Gardens. Family visitation will be prior to the services from 10:00 A.M until 10:45 A.M.

Born in Wayne County on February 11, 1924, Myrtle was one of nine children born to William Arthur and Betty Cooke Crawford. She graduated from Stantonsburg High School where she was a good student, a basketball standout, and made many life-long friends. She married Arthur Mooring, Jr. on Christmas Eve, 1942, and on Christmas Day 1942, they moved to Baltimore to begin work for the war effort at Glen L. Martin Aircraft Company where Arthur was an aircraft mechanic and she, a clerical timekeeper. After Arthur was drafted into the US Army, she returned to Fremont and again worked for the war effort, this time at Hackney Brothers Body Company stenciling munitions crates for M-153 Mines. Later in life, she chose a career in lady’s fashions, working for Burton’s, and later Barshay’s, where she developed a following of loyal customers.

Throughout her life, Myrtle was a devoted daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. A true Southern lady of uncommon strength, Myrtle’s Christian faith was central to her long life devoted to her family and to Christian service. She was the great-granddaughter of Elder Daniel Davis (1826 – 1900), a circuit rider who traveled the area on his horse, Peter, and was the founder and first pastor of Little Rock Free Will Baptist Church, Lucama, NC, and other churches in the area. She was a lifelong member of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church and, in 1962, was a charter member of the Westmoreland Pentecostal Holiness Church. She taught Sunday School, served as Vacation Bible School Director, president of the Women’s Auxiliary, church pianist, choir member, and was a member of a lady’s trio.

Over the years, her interests were varied and include bowling, ceramics, antiques, and traveling, and for nearly a decade in the 1990s she performed with the Wilson Chorale, singing at the White House, Biltmore Estate, Washington National Cathedral, Duke Chapel, Bruton Parrish, and other venues. She was a volunteer with the Wilson Memorial Hospital Auxiliary, and at local nursing homes. At age seventy-four, her childhood dream of visiting France came true, where she visited Notre Dame Cathedral, the Palace of Versailles, Mont Saint-Michel, the Tomb of Napoleon, the Louvre, and enjoyed a romantic dinner in the Eiffel Tower, and to her great delight, shopped the fashion shops along the Champs Elysees.

Myrtle and Arthur were married fifty-one years before his death on June 30, 1994. Together, they made a good home for their two sons, served others as was their Christian duty and privilege, loved their large extended family, and loved each other dearly.

She is survived by two sons, Phillip Arthur Mooring (Avis) of Wilson and Steven Crawford Mooring (Linda) of Stantonsburg; four grandchildren, John Phillip Mooring (Tracy); David Jordan Mooring, Allyson Mooring Ridout (Matt), and Jonathan Taylor Mooring (Jen Mercer, friend), and five great-grandchildren, Caroline Elizabeth Mooring, Callie Nicole Mooring, Caleb Arthur Mooring, Joshua Alexander Mooring, and Logan James Ridout.

She was preceded in death by her first husband of fifty-one years, Arthur Mooring, Jr., and her second husband of twenty years, Lannis Watson; four brothers, Earl, Theodore, Charles, and William Arthur, and four sisters, Cassie Crawford Brinson, Georgia Crawford Minshew, Grace Crawford White, and Mary Lois Crawford Stroud.

The family expresses its gratitude to the nurses, aides, and staff of Parkwood Village for the care they provided over the past two years, and to Gentiva Hospice who provided loving and compassionate care.

Flowers are welcome or memorial gifts may be made to Emmanuel College, P.O. Box 129, Franklin Springs, Georgia, 30639. Condolences may be directed to www.dignitymemorial.com