Mamie Baxter

Mamie Elizabeth Jones Baxter of Southampton died at her home on March 18. She was 85.

Born August 17, 1923, in Dinwiddie County, Richmond, Virginia, she was one of three children born to Asie and Lucy Dabney Jones. She completed her early education at Brooklyn 54 Elementary School and graduated from Brooklyn High School of Women’s Garment Trades with a vocational diploma in dressmaking.

Survivors said this week that “Mother Baxter,” as she became known over the years, accepted Christ as her personal savior at a young age. When she moved to Southampton in 1945, Pastor J. A. King and the Kings Chapel Church of God in Christ became her church family. Using her talents as a seamstress, she made the first choir robes for the church choir, and also sang with the group.

In the early 1960s she and her husband, Willie L. Baxter, founded the Brentwood Church of God in Christ. Also, she served as a deaconess and a church mother at Padgett’s Temple Church of God in Christ in Southampton.

She was very active in the Southampton School District, where children referred to her affectionately as “Miss Mamie”; she held several positions, including teacher’s aide, library aide, and lunch and playground monitor. After 40 years of dedicated service to the district, she retired in February 2006.

An active community member and an advocate of a good work ethic, she was honored on March 21, 2006, with her own special day, “Mamie Baxter Day,” by Southampton Village and the Town of Southampton.

The matriarch of the family—a mother, foster mother, grand and great-grandmother, sister and aunt—she was known within the community as “Aunt Mamie” or “Miss Mamie.” Survivors recalled her as a kind, generous and caring soul who loved all children and was very strong, industrious and independent.

In addition to Mother Rosie Stewart “Mom Rose,” whom she referred to as her surrogate mother, she is survived by four sons, Willie “Billy” R. Baxter and his wife Lou Sandra, Ronald T. Baxter and his wife Sheila, Earl “Mickey” A. Baxter and Morris “Buttons” E. Baxter; three foster daughters, Celestine Pressley, Carol Pressley and Peggy Carter Cause and her husband Michael Cause; 16 grandchildren; and many great-grandchildren, relatives and friends.

In addition to her husband, she was predeceased by two sisters, Gladys Dean and Mildred Jones, a grandson, Cornelius Pressley, and three daughters who died in infancy.

The family received visitors on March 23 at Kings Chapel Church of God in Christ on Hillcrest Avenue in Southampton, where a funeral service was also held on March 24, with the Reverend Dr. Frank A. White officiating.

Interment followed at Calverton National Cemetery.