WAYLAND, GEORGIA LEE - Izard County, Arkansas | GEORGIA LEE WAYLAND - Arkansas Gravestone Photos

Georgia Lee WAYLAND

Pineville Cemetery
Izard County,
Arkansas

March 15, 1929--October 25, 2017

* Obituary
The Baxter Bulletin
October 27, 2017

Georgia Lee Wayland, 88

Georgia Lee Wayland of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, age 88, early on the morning of Wednesday, October 25, 2017, quietly passed into glory and into the presence of her Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus.

Georgia Lee Moody was born in 1929 in a log cabin in Iuka, Arkansas to parents George Moody and Emma Lackey Killian Moody. (At this point Georgia Lee reminds us that the log cabin at least had wooden floors.)

Georgia Lee grew up in Iuka and Pineville living with her mother, older sister, Dora (later Mrs. Spellman Jennings), and much of the time with her older brother, Waid ("Brother") Killian, her dear sister-in-law, "Polly" Killian—who while herself expecting Georgia Lee's nephew, Billy Waid, had helped deliver Georgia Lee (in the log cabin).

Just a few years later Georgia Lee moved with her mother the twenty graveled miles up AR 223 to Viola, Arkansas to live with Dora and Spellman, both of whom would teach school in Viola for the next 40 years. A year or two later, but before child labor laws, Georgia Lee would start working after school at Welch and King's general store; graduate from Viola High School two years before most others her age; attend Arkansas State College for one year; begin teaching students, including her future brother-in-law, Dwight, in the Pineville Schoolhouse; fall in love with a man she had previously known (and disliked) as a boy; get married at the Viola Methodist Church; and 7 days later celebrate her 18th birthday. Whew!

Not too long after that Georgia Lee and her husband, Bob (William. R. Wayland) moved to Nashville, Tennessee where she began to work as a sales clerk at the old Cain-Sloan Department Store downtown on Church Street. Taking off for almost a full year in 1951 to have her first and only child (i.e. Bill), Georgia returned to Cain-Sloan as a sales clerk in notions. Following a merger with Allied Stores Corporation 5 years later, Georgia reluctantly agreed to enter a new executive training program only after Mr. Sloan agreed to guarantee the same money she was making as a commissioned sales clerk (presumably more than the salary paid to all the college graduate trainees, none of whom were born in a log cabin—with wood floors).

Georgia then progressed from a buyer of children's wear, to buyer of intimate apparel, and then to one of the first woman divisional merchandise managers among all Allied Stores. Along the way she help train many "young" buyers (many of whom remain her very closest friends). During buying trips over three decades she attended more than a hundred new plays (mostly musicals) on Broadway. After Dillard's acquired the Cain-Sloan stores from Allied in 1987, one of her great friends at Cain-Sloan recommended her to become the general service manager for the Viacom Cable Services company in Nashville, where for 3 years before her retirement she sought to inspire the same commitment to service of the customer that she first learned at Welch and King's in Viola.

A Methodist from birth, Georgia was, naturally, somewhat theologically liberal. When the former pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Pineville, built by her husband's grandfather, moved to Madison, Tennessee in the 1950s, she could see no harm in serving Christ alongside Bob at Madison First Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and then at St. Luke Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Madison—until 2000 when Bob, the love of her life for 56 years, the man who always made her laugh, was suddenly muted and paralyzed by a profound stroke. They both moved to the Alexian Brothers Retirement Village on Signal Mountain to be near Bill. After another year of waiting at the Alexian nursing home, Bob went on back home without Georgia.

Georgia (a/k/a "Grannie") was able to live independently for the next 13 years at the Alexian Village. She made many new friends there and at Signal Crest United Methodist Church, travelled on her own back home to Arkansas a few times, and attended many reunions of her Cain-Sloan family in Nashville. (At this point Georgia Lee reminds us how completely happy she was to live within less than 4 miles (the walking distance from Iuka to Pineville) of her only "daughter," Marti (Bill) Wayland, their two "grand" daughters, Mary Kate Wayland and Emmie (Ty) Treadwell, and the two "great" and "grand" Treadwell children, Frank and Mamie, all of whom tried to celebrated every occasion they could with Grannie until Wednesday morning—when Jesus welcomed Georgia Lee home—to the Cabin in the Sky—the one with the floor of clouds).

In addition to all those already mentioned that she knew as a child, Georgia is preceded in death by her niece, Betty Killian Ivey and by her brother-in-law, Howard Wayland.

She is survived by her niece, Margaret (Norman) Mason of Jordan, and by her nephew, David (Barbara) Jennings of Ash Flat, by all their children and grandchildren, and by the children and grandchildren of Billy Waid and of Betty.

Georgia is also survived by her brother-in-law, Dwight (Bettye) Wayland of Pineville, and by her sister-in-law, "Hank" Wayland, and by her nephew Howard (Drenda) Wayland and niece Linda Wayland, all of Houston, Texas.

Beginning 11:30 am on Friday, October 27 at the Pineville Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the family will receive any visitors that can attend on such short notice. The Rev. Wayne Wood will conduct a brief service at noon. Immediately following the service, the body, but nothing else that was Georgia Lee, will be interred next to that of Bob in the Church cemetery.

If you wish, in lieu of flowers, the family suggests that a memorial gift could be made to St. Luke Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Madison, Tennessee; Signal Crest United Methodist Church or the Signal Crest UMW, Signal Mountain, Tennessee; or to the Pineville Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

(Photo by the late Vera Emeline Lane Reeves)

Contributed on 10/27/17 by maxparnell
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Record #: 1200203

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Submitted: 10/27/17 • Approved: 11/27/20 • Last Updated: 11/30/20 • R1200203-G1200203-S3

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