Willie Mae Berry, 1931-2022
IMB Photo
Willie Mae Berry, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Ghana, died Oct. 12, 2022. She was 90.
Willie Mae was born Nov. 25, 1931, in Grenville, South Carolina, to the late Jesse and Estelle Hendrix Berry. She graduated from Simpsonville High School in Simpsonville, South Carolina, and received the Bachelor of Science from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, and studied at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
From 1959 to1964, she held various nursing positions at the South Carolina Baptist Hospital in Columbia. She also spent a summer working as a camp nurse at Camp Crestridge in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. In 1965, she took a position as a staff nurse (team leader) at Birmingham Baptist Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama.
While seeking appointment with the IMB, she shared that shortly after making a profession of faith in 1940, she learned of the need for doctors and nurses on the mission field.
“I could not get away from the idea that God wanted me as a missionary nurse. I had always heard of missionaries in Sunbeams and G.A,” she wrote.
Retired IMB missionary nurse Willie Mae Berry at the closing church service for the Baptist
Medical Center’s 50th Anniversary celebration in Nalerigu, Ghana, in 2008. IMB Photo
She continued, “I thought about this for several weeks. I knew that it would mean school which took money which we did not have in excess. When the subject of missions came up in a study course on the ‘Junior Training Union Manual,’ I talked with the leaders about what I felt was God’s leadership. With their prayers and help I was able to come to a decision. The next Sunday, I made public my decision to do whatever and go wherever God would lead.”
In 1965, the Foreign Mission Board (now the International Mission Board) appointed Willie Mae as a missionary to Ghana. As a registered nurse, she served as a missionary for 33 years at the Nalarige Baptist Hospital in Ghana.
Willie Mae is preceded in death by three sisters, Ruth Young (Wallace), Helen Henderson (Charles), and Lola Cole (Bill); and niece, Kay Weathers.
Retired IMB missionary nurse Willie Mae Berry at the closing church service for the Baptist
Medical Center’s 50th Anniversary celebration in Nalerigu, Ghana, in 2008. IMB Photo
She is survived by three nieces, Cindy Cannizzaro, Sherry Mace, and Jane Steele; two great-nieces, three great-nephews, three great-great-nephews, and a dear friend, Pat Hail.
A funeral service was held Oct. 14, 2022, at Heritage Funeral Home Chapel in Simpsonville, South Carolina, with burial in Simpsonville City Cemetery.
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.
IMB missionary nurse Willie Mae Berry rounds on patients with Dr. George Faile II at the Baptist Medical Centre in Nalerigu, Ghana. IMB Photo