Potter, Rev. Thomas P. 1865-1949

POTTER, THOMAS, DEWITT

Posted By: Linda Ziemann, volunteer (email)
Date: 11/29/2011 at 13:37:47

FORMER LE MARS BAPTIST PASTOR DIED JUNE 18
IN FESTUS, MISSOURI

Thomas Preston Potter, retired Baptist minister, passed away on June 18, 1949, at Stonycrest Haven after a lingering illness.

He was born near Clifton City, Mo., on January 31, 1865, the tenth of eleven children of William and Hannah DeWitt Potter. He attended Lamine school and from early youth was active in the Lamine Baptist church.

After his marriage to Laura Mae Thomas on January 17, 1890, he continued to live on the farm where he was born until December, 1898, when he moved his family to Liberty, Mo., where he entered William Jewell College. During his college career and after graduation he served as pastor of a number of Baptist churches in central and northwestern Missouri. In 1918 he moved to Iowa where he spent the last years of his ministry.

He retired from his last pastorate in LeMars, Iowa, in May 1936, and returned to Missouri where he lived on a farm near Curryville until August 1944, when he and his wife moved to Hillsboro to live with a daughter, Mrs. Lutie Hunter. Mrs. Potter died suddenly on November 5, 1946. In June 1947, he went to Festus where he lived at 827 Warne St.

He is survived by one son, Dr. Allen B. Potter, of St. Louis, Mo.; two daughters, Mrs. Avery Crew, of Detroit, Mich., and Mrs. Lutie Hunter, of Festus, Mo.; three granddaughters, Mrs. Farriell Mason of Festus, and Carolyn and Connie Crew, of Detroit; one brother, Dr. James L. Potter, of Los Angeles, Calif., and a number of nephews and nieces.

The body lay in state at the Vineyard Funeral Parlor in Festus, until Monday morning, June 20, when it was removed to the Gillispi Funeral Home in Sedalia. Funeral services were conducted there on Tuesday, June 21, by Rev. A. A. Braungardt, pastor of the Hillsboro Baptist Church. Internment was in Crown Hill cemetery.

~Source: LeMars Globe-Post, June 23, 1949