Drake, Mrs. William Winans
1/1/1970
May 13, 1874 - 1970 |
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| Mrs. W. W. Drake was born Nora Collier, May 13, 1874. When she was 21 years of age, she married William Winans Drake, who was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Louisiana. In the course of the years, two children, Marlin Watson and Walton Collier, were born in this Methodist parsonage family. For approximately 42 years, the Reverend and Mrs. Drake served the Methodist Church in Louisiana, having had the following appointments: First, Crowley; Franklin; Felicity Street, New Orleans; District Superintendent of Crowley District; First, Lake Charles; First, Baton Rouge; Carrollton, New Orleans Minden; Noel Memorial; New Orleans District; Ruston; First, Monroe; and District Superintendent of Lake Charles District, where Mr. Drake died in 1933. Mrs. Drake was first, last and always a churchwoman. She believed in the church. She loved the church with a passion and cared for people. Her husband served his God and his church with distinction. Much of his success was attributed to the strength and help he received from his companion of 38 years. She was a kind of calm rock to whom he retreated when there was nowhere else to go, and he never failed to take her counsel in matters great or small. She was ever an inspiration as he tried to lead his people toward something better. She built a home where love abounded, a home in which there was an indomitable courage that took each day’s happenings with the conviction that “This is the day which the Lord has made.” It was a home where the pattern of sacrificial love was built into its framework. It was a home where intellectual pursuits were fostered and encouraged. She counted it a commission from God to rear her family in the nurture and admonition of her Lord, and, as Susanna Wesley, the great mother of Methodism, she took time to teach her children by precept and example the meaning of the Christian faith and life. Mrs. Drake’s life was sustained and strengthened through the years by the deep Christian convictions that she held — and that held her. She not only bad the belief that there is a Power that re-enforces us when we are in need — and picks us up when we fall, but that there are arms that receive us when life is over. She lived a beautiful life and died a beautiful death. May she have the two-fold resurrection — one into the great life beyond with her Lord and her loved ones, the other in the many lives that remain here on earth, blessed and purified by her influence. |
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| Source: Journal of the Louisiana Conference of the United Methodist Church, Conference A, 1970, Pages 147-148, by Sam Nader. | |
