Funeral services for Martha Ferne Harrell, of Winnsboro, will be held January 13, 2018, at Beaty Funeral home with elder Jimmy Hamrick officiating. Interment followed at Hopewell Cemetery in Wood county.
Ferne went home to be with her Lord on January 10 at Autumn Wind Assisted Living where she had resided since March 1, 2009.
She was born August 16, 1922, in Spearsville, Louisiana to Sam Bright Rockett and Annie Bowen Rockett. She graduated as valedictorian of her high school class at Spearsville in 1939.
She was married to Walter Lewis Harrell on December 5, 1942. Ferne was a homemaker and Girl Scout leader who loved to cook, sew, knit, quilt, paint, work cross-word puzzles and garden. She loved singing, especially gospel music, and enjoyed reading music composed with shape notes, a skill she learned in her youth from her father, Sam, who taught singing school. She was also a self-taught pianist, and a Primitive Baptist by faith.
Walter’s work for British Petroleum resulted in moves from Arkansas and Louisiana to West Texas and New Mexico where Ferne attended New Mexico Junior College to become a Licensed Vocational Nurse. As her caretakers late in her life all knew, she treasured the years she spent serving her patients in Lovington, New Mexico. In 1979 the Harrells retired to Winnsboro.
Ferne is survived by son Randy Harrell and wife Jeanene Hamrick Harrell of Dallas (and Winnsboro); son David Harrell and wife Barbara Reed Harrell of Cedar Park, Texas; daughter Susan Harrell Smith of Winnsboro. She is also survived by eight grandchildren and twenty-five great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by husband, Walter Lewis Harrell, two sisters and two brothers.
Honorary pallbearers are Jeff Harrell, Jared Harrell, James Harrell, Andrew Vaughn, Scott Socolofsky, Shane Moore, Jeff Lee, and Jason Gilbreath.
