Minnie Lou Bethea was born in West Point, MS in the Tibbee Community on January 12,1929 to the union of James (Jim) Culberson and Grozelia Watson Culberson. Minnie attended the Mt. Pisgah Baptist church in West Point, and she accepted the Lord and Savior and was baptized at an early age. She attended school and graduated school in Okitibbeha County and a few short years later at the age of 22 she moved to Stockton, CA to live with relatives.
The year was 1951 when she moved to Stockton, and it was also the same year in which she found her new church home at Greater Faith Baptist Church then under the leadership of Dr. Austin E. Williams. At Greater Faith Minnie soon joined the Usher board, a board that she proudly served for nearly 70 years. Greater Faith was also where she would meet her future husband Liston Anthony Bethea. The two married in November of 1958, and they had two children Michael and Rebecca. Minnie worked primarily as a homemaker, a career in which she worked for over 30 years. Minnie also served as a girl scout aide for a time (her nickname back then was “Peaches”), she volunteered as a leader in the Drum and Bugle Corps, and was elected president of Edison High School’s PTA.
She loved to travel. Minnie trotted the globe traveling to several countries and foreign cities with Hong Kong, Rome, and Paris to name a few, and a slight mention that her fav places were Hawaii and the Bahamas. Minnie loved her arts and crafts, game shows, and constant craving for shelling nuts especially walnuts and pecans. She also loved her friends and her family.
She is preceded in death by her parents, sister Geneva, brothers James, Perry, Marshall, Mozell, and Rudolph, her husband Liston Anthony Bethea, and children Michael and Rebecca Bethea. She leaves to mourn her: granddaughters Latrina Bethea of Stockton, CA and Michelle Bethea of Arlington, Virginia, grandson Joseph Anthony Harmon of Las Vegas, NV, great grandson Malachi Patterson of Stockton, CA, grand-daughter-in law Withyana Carter of Las Vegas, NV, daughter-in-law Lorraine Bethea-Siller of Stockton, CA, and son-in-law John Harmon of Stockton, CA, as well as a host of nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends
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