Obituaries

Hilda Carlene Wade Jackson

Photo of Hilda Carlene Wade Jackson
Between Mother's Day and Father's Day of this year, Hilda Carlene Wade Jackson made it clear to family and friends that she was ready to die. Carlene's mother died on Mother's Day in 1955. Sixty-one years later, Carlene died peacefully in her sleep on Father's Day, June 19, 2016. As much as Carlene loved her children, she wanted more than anything to be reunited with the father of her children, her beloved husband of 64 years, Johnny Joe Jackson Sr. who preceded her in death nearly three years ago. Theirs was a romance worthy of a 1940's Hollywood melodrama, complete with a broken engagement, a romantic rival, late night telegrams, and a fateful telephone call that reunited them for the next 65 years. They married and went off to Ouachita Baptist College to prepare for a lifetime of ministry. From there they served churches in Arkansas and Texas as pastor and pastor's wife while raising a houseful of sons: Johnny Jr., Paul, Brent, and Timothy. Carlene Wade was born to Annie & Benjamin Wade on August 26, 1928, in Tupelo, Miss. She was the only daughter in a household with five sons: Sidney (d. 1996), Bobby (d. 1995), Jack (d. 1978), her twin, Carl, currently of Lucedale, Miss., and Jay (d. 1999). The Wades soon moved to Kosciukso, Miss., where Carlene graduated from "Kosy High" in 1947. She was an honor student at Clark College the following year. She loved to learn and she loved to teach. She devoted her life at home and church to nurturing young children and mentoring young women. She was given to hospitality, having cooked for and hosted literally thousands of people in her home over the years. To be counted as her friend was to have a friend for life. She reveled in becoming "Nana" with the birth of her first two grandchildren just days apart in 1974. The joy of welcoming each new grandchild (11 in all) and great-grandchild (seven and counting) never got old. Carlene delighted in dropping salted peanuts into a cold bottle of Pepsi as much in her old age as she did when she was a teenager. She loved to laugh–and often did until she was breathless and tears streamed down her face. Carlene sang praises to the Lord she loved and sang quietly over the children she adored. She lived the Biblical imperative to "pray without ceasing." Nothing warmed her heart more than a conversation with a cherished friend or the sight of her progeny coming to visit. And even though her surroundings grew small in the last couple of years of her life, her curiosity about life and others remained expansive. No verse is more appropriate to sum up her 87 years than this: "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her." A public celebration of Carlene's life will be held at Otter Creek Community Church SBC in Little Rock, Ark., on Monday, June 27 at 2:30 p.m.. Arrangements by Roller-Chenal Funeral Home, 13801 Chenal Parkway, Little Rock, Ark. (501) 224-8300. Online guestbook: www.rollerfuneralhomes.com/chenal.

Published June 24, 2016

Upcoming Events