Lula Brown McGraw

October 1918-January 2017

Our dear mother, grand-mother, and great grand-mother left us for the loving and healing arms of

Jesus early Monday morning while in the care of the doctors and nurses of the

Singing River Hospital and Hospice of Light in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Lula was the last surviving member of Malcolm and Mary Brown’s family which included her late brothers

Horace, Ralph, Fred, Hugh, and Donald Brown and her especially beloved sisters,

the late Mary Brown Scott and Dorothy Brown Brooks.

Her late husband Vernon S. McGraw Senior’s family added eleven more

brothers and sisters for her to love and support.

She was born in the family farmhouse on October 25, 1918, in the Brownville,

Alabama community (near Evergreen). As a young woman growing up in the depression era,

the Olive Branch Baptist Church, Owasso, Alabama, became the center of her life.

As a teenager, she played the piano for her older brother Fred’s many rural Baptist church revival meetings.

She put her music career on hold to marry Vernon McGraw in June 1942.

She followed him to Lawton, Oklahoma, and Denver, Colorado as he trained for Army Air Corps B-29 crew duty.

She would talk of those days as her life’s adventure (mountains, snow, airplanes, trains, ration stamps!!).

After WWII ended, Vernon moved his bride and infant son (Vernon Jr.) to Mobile, Alabama,

and then back to Evergreen. After the birth of her second son, Kenneth Ray in 1947,

the family moved to Opp, Alabama where they lived until moving to Montgomery in 1955.

Lula and Vernon bought a house on Johnstown Drive in the Dalraida suburb of

Montgomery where they both became active members of Dalraida Baptist Church.

Lula’s prayers for a daughter were answered when Mary Anita arrived, December 1956,

and another prayer answered when her older sister, Mary Scott, and her family moved to

Montgomery in 1959. With their youngest sister Dot only a two hour drive away in Red Level,

the three sisters and their families were together again for the next 30 years.

Now the sisters are once again all together in heaven, laughing, singing and telling stories.

Lula is survived by her two sons, Vernon McGraw Jr. (Marilyn) in Niceville, Florida, Kenneth McGraw (Sandra) in Montgomery, and her daughter Mary Anita Dabbs (Brian) in Gulfport, Ms.;

Seven grandchildren (Bryan McGraw, Beth McGraw Johnson, Jennifer McGraw Arnold,

Ryan McGraw, Jonathon Scott McGraw, Drew Dabbs and Preston Dabbs); eight great grandchildren

(Anna Catherine McGraw, James McGraw, Elizabeth McGraw, Jack McGraw, Mallory McGraw,

Jorie Johnson, Jules Johnson, and Isaac Dabbs). The lives of her children, grandchildren,

and great grandchildren confirm her legacy is one of love, prayer, worship, family, giving, forgiving,

with a minute by minute focus on her savior, Jesus Christ. A memorial service celebrating Lula’s life is scheduled for Saturday, 2PM, January 14, 2017, in the chapel at Leak-Memory funeral home.

Visitation at 1230PM. Burial will follow in Greenwood Cemetery.

Memorials can be made to the Church Planting Fund at Resonate.net/give or Church Planting Fund,

Resonate Church, PO Box 1605, Pullman, WA 99163. Questions can be directed to [email protected].

Thanks to all of our friends who have served our mother so lovingly

including Seashore Highlands, Memorial Hospital, Singing River Hospital, Ann, Melissa, Brenda, Grachelle,

Courtney, Rita, Bobbye, Gloria, and Barbara.