Portrait of Dorothy Sledge. IMB Photo
Dorothy Lee Sledge, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Peru and Colombia, died March 17, 2024, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was 101.
Dorothy was born Aug. 5, 1922, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Edward Bradstreet Sewall and Lorena Reeves Sewall. She graduated from Minnehaha Academy, and received the bachelor’s degree from Bob Jones University (then in Cleveland, Tennessee), and the Master in Religious Education from New Orleans Theological Seminary.
She married Randall Dothan Sledge on August 12, 1949.
Her obituary reported that, “While Randall finished his Doctor of Theology degree and pastored churches, she bore and lost their first child and started her work as ‘the wife of the pastor’ (a full-time job in those days, though unpaid), in south Louisiana churches in Iowa and Meringouin.”
The Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) appointed Randall and Dorothy missionaries to Peru and later Colombia.
Dorothy taught public speaking at the Baptist Seminary in Cali for 10 years. After retirement, she and Randall also volunteered in short-term positions with the IMB back in Colombia and in war-torn Bosnia.
Dorothy is preceded in death by an infant son, Timothy Randall Sledge.
She is survived by her beloved husband of over 74 years, Randall Dothan Sledge; three children and their spouses, Jonathan Edward Sledge (Deborah Norton) of Raleigh, North Carolina; Richard William Sledge (Molly Sledge) of Fort Collins, Colorado; and Martha Lee Sledge (Steven Hornsby), of New York City; 9 grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; her brothers and their spouses, Edward Reeves Sewall (Barbara Overton Sewall) and Robert Winslow Sewall (Marlys Pearson Sewall); numerous nieces and nephews; and countless friends and colleagues.
A funeral service was held March 23, at Clear Springs Cemetery in the Martin community of Red River Parish, Louisiana.
Donations in her memory may be made to the Lottie Moon Offering, IMB, 3806 Monument Avenue, Richmond, VA 23230, or online at Generosity Resource Center – IMB Generosity.
Read an obituary here.