In Memory - 2005

Miriam Gruber was born to Lutheran parents in Mahonoy City, Pennsylvania, and received her elementary and secondary education there. Invited by a playmate to a revival at the Methodist Church, she responded to the altar call and her parents stood with her when she joined that church soon after. At the age of ten she was moved by the witness of a China missionary home on furlough to committed life to missionary work.Miriam is a graduate of Millersville University, Pennsylvania, and has her M.A. from Columbia University. She has pursued post-graduate study at Union Theological Seminary (NYC), Boston and American Universities, and Scarritt College.She was commissioned in 1946 and appointed to educational work in Fuchow, China, where at the time of the Communist takeover she was placed under house arrest. Expelled with other missionaries in November 1950, and after a grueling trek of thirteen days, she and ten others reached Hong Kong. From there she took ship for the United States. The ship’s first stop was Singapore, where upon landing Miriam learned of a need for a teacher in the Methodist Girls School and responded immediately. She remained there for three years, and also assisted the pastor of Kampong Kapor Methodist Church. She then served from 1954 to 1963 in the Methodist home for girls in Malacca, Malaysia. In Singapore again she was from 1963 to 1969 the field treasurer, and later administrator of the mission guest house, chaplain of the girls’ school, and served on the Board of Governors of the international and ecumenical Trinity Theological College.In 1975 Miriam returned to the States for a short-term assignment in the Southeast Asia office of the Board of Global Ministries in New York. After that she was put on special assignment to do interpretation for the Board, residing in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where she was also active in the Calvary United Methodist Church and the district United Methodist Women. During the years since her return to the States Miriam has been able to make several trips back to Singapore, Malaysia and China. She moved to Brooks-Howell March 30, 1995, and immediately became active in local church and community work.

Miriam was a member of Groce United Methodist Church. The church planned and presented "A Service to the Glory of God and in Remembrance and Celebration for the Life of Miriam Jean Gruber" at Brooks-Howell on August.

Katherine Boeye Ward

March 25, 1900 - July 2, 2005

Katherine Boeye was born in Morrison, Illinois, on March 25, 1900. Her minister father moved to Fort Worth, Texas in 1901, so Katherine’s childhood was spent there. In 1912 the family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where Katherine attended high school and Nebraska Wesleyan University.After graduation in 1922, Katherine taught for two years in America and studied one year at Columbia University Teachers’ College, where she received her M.A. degree. In 1925 she sailed to China as a missionary of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of The Methodist Church.During the Chinese Civil War period of 1927 Katherine was assigned work in Singapore, where she taught in a mission school for one year. Upon her return to China in 1928, she taught in mission schools in Nanjing and Chungking through 1939.Due to her mother’s illness, Katherine remained in America during much of the 1940's. Part of that time she was Director of Christian Education in a Monrovia, California church. In 1941 her Alma Mater, Nebraska Wesleyan University, gave her the honorary degree of Doctor of Education (Ed.D).Upon her mother’s death in 1948 she was married to Bishop Ralph A. Ward, a recent widower. The Wards returned to China to live in Shanghai, where Bishop Ward had supervision of Methodist work in four provinces. They lived in Shanghai for two and a half years, including eighteen months under the Communist regime, which gave them exit permits in late 1950.

In 1952 The Methodist Church asked Bishop Ward to organize work in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, to aid refugees from mainland China. The Wards were in this area until his death in Hong Kong in 1958. After a period of time in the U.S., Katherine was reactivated as a missionary of the Women’s Division of the Board of Global Ministries and was sent to Taiwan to help establish the Wesley Girls School. She was there from 1960 to early 1964, then later was assigned in Hong Kong. She retired in 1966, lived in Claremont, California, for ten years, then moved to North Carolina in 1977. She moved to Brooks-Howell Home on August 30, 1993, where she recently celebrated her 105^th birthday. She was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, P.E.O, and Alpha Gamma Delta. Until very recently she was in charge of program planning for her UMW circle, and to the end was reading books on serious subjects. A memorial service is tentatively set for October.

Margaret Overby

November 25, 1917 - July 29, 2005

Margaret Overby was born in Richmond, Virginia, the last child of Ernest and Zoe Proctor Overby. Her older sisters were Sarah, and Elizabeth, who served as a missionary many years in India. Margaret’s father worked at the post office, then entered the Methodist ministry in the Virginia Conference when Margaret was six.Margaret joined Decatur Street Methodist Church in 1923 when she was five. She graduated from high school in June 1934, but was unable to attend college until 1936. She attended Ferrum College for a short time and then worked in a small library in Richmond. She graduated from a local business college, taking to bookkeeping like a "duck to water." She worked several years, then joined the WACS in 1943, serving until 1946. Overseas duty was in Paris. After the war she used the GI Bill to complete college at the University of Richmond, graduating with a BS in Business Administration, a major in Accounting.For some time she felt a desire to be in ministry with the church, but was originally turned down to become a deaconess because the committee was not sure what to do with a bookkeeper. After several months, however, she received a telephone call from Marcy Center in Chicago, which needed a bookkeeper. She began work there in June 1963, and was commissioned a deaconess in Detroit November 1963. She served at Marcy until 1978 when she moved to Wesley Community Center, Louisville, KY. She retired in 1983 and moved to Brooks-Howell in 1989.Margaret was active in the Social Concerns Circle at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church and previously served several terms as chair of the library committee at Brooks-Howell.A memorial service was held in the Chapel on August 16. Burial was at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

Mary Beth Littlejohn

Mary Beth Littlejohn was born April 2, 1906, in Pacolet, South Carolina, the daughter of Ernest Nucholls and Katherine Davis Littlejohn. In 1926 she graduated from Limestone College and received her master’s degree from Scarritt College for Christian Workers in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1932.

Miss Littlejohn was consecrated a deaconess of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1932 and her first appointment was to the High School Department, Sue Bennett College, London, Kentucky. Subsequent appointments were with the Dulac Indian Mission in Louisiana and the Indian Mission of Oklahoma, and rural work in Houma, Louisiana. She returned to South Carolina in 1951 and to Pacolet in 1955, where she was the Church and Community worker for the Spartanburg District until she retired in 1972. She continued to make Pacolet her home until 1999 when she moved to White Oaks for her health. In December 2004 Miss Littlejohn became a resident at Brooks-Howell Home. She died on Saturday, February 6, and her funeral was at the Pacolet United Methodist Church on February 9. Interment was in the church cemetery. Nancy Garrison, Jeannette Byrd, and Sallie Burns from Brooks-Howell Home attended the funeral.