Grace Bishop Colson

Born June 10, 1921 in Clinton, Mississippi to Daniel Webster Bishop and Mattie Katherine (Katie) Moore, Elizabeth Grace Bishop was the second of four girls born following five older brothers. As the daughter of a bi-vocational pastor during the Depression era, she played congregational hymns on the piano when no accompanist could be found and taught her first Sunday School course at age 16. Grace studied Bible, English, and business subjects at Mississippi’s Blue Mountain College, graduating in 1942. After one year teaching high school and three as church educational secretary, she entered Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas to complete a Master’s of Religious Education. There she met Army Air Corps veteran John Virgil Colson, who was preparing for pastoral ministry, and married him in 1949. After seminary they worked at Buckner Orphans Home in Dallas, she as personnel secretary and he as a Bible teacher and, later, dean of boys. Their first son was born shortly before they were called to Berryhill Church in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1954. There Grace gave birth to two more sons, played piano and organ as needed, led in the Woman’s Missionary Union, and acted as her husband’s “Minister of Education.” When the family moved to Pali View Church in Kaneohe, Hawaii in 1964, Grace went to school with the boys, teaching English and office skills at Hawaii Baptist Academy. In 1973 God led them to Mission Village Church in San Diego, California and the Baptist pastor’s wife was hired to teach at Marian, a private Catholic high school. When the International Mission Board offered the opportunity in 1978, Grace went (at age 57) as a missionary associate to Liberia, West Africa where she taught business subjects and Virgil taught Bible at Ricks Institute for the next seven years. The two “retired” to Jacksonville, Florida where they continued as lay ministers at Shindler Drive Church. Once again she supplied accompaniment for worship and served as WMU director. After her husband died, Grace moved to Texas to live with a son. At West Conroe Baptist Church she volunteered in the church library, worked with the In Touch ministry visiting shut-ins (until she gave up her driver’s license at age 96), and taught Sunday School. Grace Bishop Colson died on July 30, 2018 after a brief illness. She is survived by her sons and daughters-in-law Charles and Jeannie, John and Hope, Carey and Denice and her grandchildren Jessica, Joshua, Rachel, Rebecca, Nicole, and Sara. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Hawaii Baptist Academy in her honor.