Katherine Byrd Arrington, 94, died Sunday October 21, 2018 in Oxford at Oxford Health and Rehab Center, where she had lived for the last three and one-half years. The funeral service will be Thursday October 25, at 10:00 a.m. in the Chapel of Parkway Funeral Home in Ridgeland, with Rev. Roger Taylor officiating. Burial will follow at Mize Cemetery in Mize, MS. Visitation will be at Parkway Funeral Home on Wednesday October 24 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and on Thursday morning from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Born in Mize, MS on March 7, 1924, to the late Henry Hamilton Byrd and Leona Anderson Byrd, Mrs. Arrington was the youngest of nine children. Following her graduation from Mize High School, she entered nursing school and graduated as an R.N., training at Jackson Infirmary, the forerunner of St. Dominic’s Hospital. In 1948 she married M. S. (Deek) Arrington, a Hattiesburg native, and for the next 15 years the couple made their home in Jackson.
Discerning a call to foreign missionary work, Katherine and Deek moved to Jacksonville, Texas, in 1963. During their three-year stay Katherine worked at Nan Travis Hospital while Deek pursued ministerial studies at Baptist Missionary Association Theological Seminary. Elected to serve as Baptist missionaries in Bolivia in 1966, they disposed of most of their possessions and moved the following year to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. After a year of intensive language study, they left Santa Cruz and lived for the next 14 years in remote areas in the jungles of Bolivia in the upper regions of the Amazon Basin, where they ministered to the indigenous peoples. Katherine put her nursing skills to good use by setting up a clinic on the banks of the Chapare River. There she performed a wide variety of duties, including delivering babies, giving inoculations, and cleaning and bandaging wounds. A detailed account of her story can be found in The Arringtons in Bolivia by Bettye White.
When Katherine and Deek retired from the foreign mission field, they returned to Jackson. She resumed her nursing career at St. Dominic’s and later worked at St. Catherine’s Village in Madison. She was a faithful member of Victory Baptist Church in Madison.
In addition to her parents she was predeceased by her husband Deek, all eight of her brothers and sisters, three grandchildren, and a great-grandson. Survivors include a son, Melvin S. Arrington, Jr. and his wife Teresa of Oxford, Maryjane Mathis and her husband Gene of Jacksonville, Texas, eight grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.
Memorial contributions in Mrs. Arrington’s memory may be made to the Rivers of Blessing Bolivian Boat Ministry, Baptist Missionary Association, P.O. Box 878, Conway, Arkansas, 72033.
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