Lallie Hudgings Wallace

surrounded by her family at Richland Health Center in Nashville, Tennessee. She

was born in Birmingham, Alabama on March 8, 1929, to Robert Love Taylor

Hudgings and Gladys Woodall Hudgings.

Lallie’s family moved to Ft. Payne, Alabama, where she attended elementary and junior high school. She then attended Gulf Park High School (a boarding school) in Pass Christian, Mississippi. After graduation from high school she enrolled in Vanderbilt University at the young age of 16, where she received a B.S. in Biology. While attending Vanderbilt, she was named Alabama’s Maid of Cotton, and she traveled throughout the state giving speeches representing the cotton industry. She was forever grateful to her friends, Lolly Hume Henry (Mrs. Douglas Henry) and “Boo” Betty Bruce Cate Collins (Mrs. Robert Collins), who took notes for her while she was on tour. At Vanderbilt Lallie was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority and was named Miss Vanderbilt her senior year.

Not only did Lallie have brains and beauty, she was also an accomplished athlete. She was a life member in the American Water Ski Association, and she was the first woman to go off a ski jump in Alabama. Spending summers at her grandparents’ cabin on Lake Guntersville in Alabama with her sister, Nell, and her cousins were the happiest memories of her childhood, memories which she shared often with family and friends up until her death. She later taught her children to ski in Guntersville when they were very young, instilling in them both a great and lasting love of the water.

Lallie’s athletic endeavors did not stop with water skiing, however. She was an avid tennis player for many years. She had a great love for adventure of all kinds and traveled the world with her dear friend, Cecy Reed (Mrs. Jim Reed). Her love of the outdoors was well known, and in 1994 at the age of 65, she hiked down the Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon and pitched her own tent every night as she joined Mimi, and a group of her friends, for a camping and rafting trip down the Colorado River.

Lallie had a passion for continuing education, learning and the arts. She spent many years researching the genealogy of the Bransford, Wallace, Hudgings and Woodall families, the findings of which will be donated to the Tennessee State Archives. She regularly attended education programs at Vanderbilt, and she thoroughly enjoyed her season tickets at TPAC for the Symphony Pops and the theater.

Lallie was a member of St. Georges Episcopal Church, the Junior League of Nashville, the Deer Park Garden Club, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Centennial Club, the Colonial Dames, and the Belle Meade Country Club.

Lallie is predeceased by her husband, Marion Hamilton Wallace, Jr. (Ham). She is survived by her two children, M. Hamilton Wallace III (Ham) (Marion Howard Wallace), and Anne Bransford Wallace (Mimi) (The Honorable Marian F. Harrison), her grandchildren Diana Wallace Perdue (Brandon Lee Perdue) and M. Hamilton Wallace IV. Lallie recently welcomed two great-grandchildren, Evelyn Alexander Perdue and Jackson Davis Perdue. She is also survived by her sister, Nell Hudgings Bransford.

The family wishes to thank for their love and support during her long illness her physician, Dr. Emily Barker, and her caregivers: Kathy Moon, Pam Sharpe, Sharon Moody, Habie Barrie, Debbie Turner, Shelley Jenkins, Camden Minor, Margaret Lawrence, Carmen Johnson, and the staff at Alive Hospice.

Lallie lived well, she loved well, and she will be deeply missed.

A funeral service will be held at St. Georges Episcopal Church on Wednesday, December 7, 2022, at 11:30 A.M. Visitation will take place at the church one hour before the service. A celebration of Lallie’s life will be held at Belle Meade Country Club on the same day between 5:00 P.M and 7:00 P.M.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Wallace Family Fund in Diabetes Research, Vanderbilt Diabetes Center, 807 Light Hall, 2212 Garland Avenue, Nashville, Tn. 37232-0200; the USA Water Ski and Wake Sports Foundation, 6039 Cypress Gardens Blvd. #481, Winter Haven, Fla. 33884; the Nashville City Cemetery, P.O. Box 50733, Nashville, Tn. 37215-0773; the Nashville Humane Association, 213 Osceola Ave., Nashville, Tn. 37209, or to the charity of your choice.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.marshalldonnellycombs.com for the Wallace family.