Sara Angeline Wilson

Mama, Sara Angeline Faulkner/Pinkerton/Kelton/Wilson (June 25, 1927 — April 2, 2024) was born at her maternal grandparents’ house in rural Midland, Tennessee. Her brother Clayton, remembered, “Sara had the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen.” Her mother, Rubye Eufala Tucker Faulkner (1898-1991) said, “All my babies were pretty, but Sara was the cutest because she was the fattest.”

In 1934, her father, Walter Orr “W.O” Faulkner (1893-1985) bought a country store in Donnell's Chapel—twenty miles east of Midland. Young Sara, her “Mother and Daddy”, brother Clayton, sister Edna (1924-2000) and their dog, Whizzer, moved to a new life in the quaint and hilly area. Sara’s youngest sister, Robbie (1935-2013) was born the next year.

Mama attended the first, and part of the second grade, in Fosterville. After arriving in Donnell’s Chapel she finished the second grade and graduated from Murray Elementary School as the salutatorian. The following year she attended Murfreesboro Central High School. In her junior year, 1944, the school was destroyed by fire. She completed her junior year at McFadden School and her senior year at Middle Tennessee State Teacher's College, graduating in 1945.

With her finely honed secretarial and organizational skills she went to work for the Veterans Administration at Thayer Hospital in Nashville. She stayed in a dorm there during the week and returned home to Donnell’s Chapel on the weekends.

Over the next many years, Mama survived three husbands, George Pinkerton (1924-1987), Jimmy Kelton (1923-1993), Fred Wilson (1923-2017), and a child, Scotty Pinkerton (1960-1987). Sustained with an unwavering loyalty and love for her children, Dolores (1949), Larry (1951), Pamela (1954) and Celeste (1955) and a gift to ‘laugh easy and cry easy,’ she persevered.

Sara Angeline, the shy and timid girl from the country, lived a contrasting life of joy, pain, love and loss in various depths and hues. She is the last of her beloved (immediate) Faulkner family. She took with her nearly a century of rich stories, sayings, and bittersweet memories.

Rest peacefully in your dreamless sleep, Mama, we will keep you and your story alive in our memories, you are loved.