Services Monday for Bessie Grace Meiner, 87

 

Bessie Grace Meiner

 

A native of the Mississippi Delta, Bessie Grace Meiner, 87, died Thursday, June 2, 2011 at Winthrop West Center in Rome, GA. A private memorial service will be held in the chapel of Daniels Funeral Home, Rome GA on Monday, June 6, at 11 a.m. with the Reverend Jane Brooks of First United Methodist Church, officiating.

Growing up outside Stuttgart, Arkansas, on the Grand Prairie, Ms. Meiner was part of a family dedicated to rice and soybean farming. Throughout her 20-year career, she stayed true to her ethic of service above self and her family's notion of public service as a most worthwhile career choice. She worked her way up the administrative ladder to a position of leadership in the Arkansas Welfare and Human Services Department. During that time, she settled in North Little Rock (AR) to be near her professional workplace.

Ms. Meiner, an advocate for seniors and the disabled, focused her attention in her career on ensuring quality nursing home licensure. In the process, she became devoted to administrators, staffs and patients at long-term health care sites throughout the state of Arkansas and the mid-South. By the time she retired, a system of real accountability was in place, protecting the rights of those living in nursing homes.

A volunteer in civic, church and social activities until her retirement in the mid-eighties, Ms. Meiner was a member of the Little Rock Women's City Club, Baptist Hospital Auxiliary, United Methodist Women, American Legion Auxiliary, Beta Sigma Phi sorority and other service organizations like the American Red Cross and United Way of Arkansas.

According to her colleagues and friends inside these organizations, Ms. Meiner was known for her event planning and for presiding over timely and engaging professional meetings. For her, friendship and fellowship were the ultimate takeaways from such involvement.

In 2003, Ms. Meiner relocated to Floyd County and Rome and quickly made friends with residents of The Village at Maplewood, where she resided. She was among the first residents of the active senior community and quickly adapted to her second home.

The move to Georgia allowed Ms. Meiner to be closer to her son and daughter-in-law, Bruce and Renva Watterson and to her grandson Chase Watterson and his wife Carrie and their two children-Charles Bruce III and Annabelle Elaine as well as her granddaughter Wendy Kristen Buntin and her husband Wilson of Nashville, TN, and their son, John Harmon Buntin.

In addition to her son, she is survived by her daughter, Stephanie Meiner Rumfelt and her husband, Mark, and her granddaughter Jessica Lauren Williams of Paducah, KY; her niece Deborah Cook McCarson and her husband Ernest Gaston McCarson III of Ooltewah, TN, her cousin Albert William Steele of Waco, TX and members of their extended families. Ms. Meiner was predeceased by her parents, Anna and Steve Shimek of Hazen (AR); her sister, Elsie Shimek Cook and her husband Evan Miles Cook of Chattanooga (TN).

To honor Ms. Meiner's work to advance humanitarian causes, memorials may be made to the Network Day Services of Rome, 402 W. 10th St., Rome, GA  30161, Mercy Senior Care of Rome, 212 W. 3rd St., Rome, GA 30161, Seven Hills Rome Rotary or the Heyman Hospice, P. O. Box 163, Rome, GA 30162-0163.  The family acknowledges with gratitude the care given Ms. Meiner by the Heyman Hospice personnel.

 

Daniel's Funeral Home, Rome.