At the age of 96 and living just across Main Street in Beulaville, Faye Quinn Williams is one of our oldest, most local, and most beloved church members. A typical day for her includes morning coffee, a little bird watching, conversations with friends and caregivers, reading her Bible, and learning … after all these years, still learning.

Faye was born on October 15, 1929, the third of six children to Tharon and Isla Quinn of Beulaville. She lived a typical but blessed life in her family home at the corner of Lyman and Quinn Store Roads, surrounded by her immediate family as well as plenty of aunts and uncles and cousins. Faye’s mother said she was the easiest of the six children to raise, primarily because she could be put to bed and would stay there. It's nice to be appreciated for being a good sleeper!

As children, Faye and her siblings and cousins had no shortage of work and play to do each day. Her typical chores at home included gathering and separating the cows each evening, helping with the family garden, gathering eggs, and keeping the kitchen wood box filled for the wood stove they cooked on. She also had the responsibility of clerking at the general store her family ran. When work was done, there was plenty of fun as the children played school, made playhouses with sticks and tobacco twine in the yard, and invented games like “Map” – a pretty high-tech game of hide and seek for the 1930s. Faye and her cousin, Vena, even created a homemade telephone stretching between their two-bedroom windows.

Education was important in the Quinn home. Reading materials were readily available and her father expected all his children to attend post-secondary school. Faye attended Beulaville School from first grade until the beginning of tenth grade when the school burned down. Because her father knew her education would be a little less than ideal in the post-fire situation there, he moved her to Warsaw High School, which was convenient as he was traveling there daily for the family business by that time. She graduated from Warsaw High and then attended Pineland Junior College in Salemburg for a summer session before attending the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she graduated with a degree to teach Business Education. Later, after becoming a mother, she attended East Carolina University and earned a master’s degree in Administration.

Faye’s first teaching job was at Beulaville High School where she taught for two years before getting a secretarial job at the newly established DuPont company in Kinston. Her stay at DuPont was short, however, because her husband Richard was drafted and going through training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. Faye took and passed the civil service exam and worked at Fort Jackson as well, until Richard went to Germany. With her husband overseas, she returned to Duplin County for a while. She had plans to return to DuPont, but instead was heavily recruited to teach again, and she took a job at Kenansville High School. Schools were consolidated in 1957 so she was moved to James Kenan High School just outside of Warsaw. She remained at James Kenan until 1991 and retired with more than 40 years of total teaching time under her belt.

As her career was moving along beautifully, her personal life was as well. Faye married Richard Williams in 1952 and they welcomed their son, Frederick, into the family in 1959. She began attending church at Beulaville Presbyterian Church in the “old” church building when she and Richard were dating, and she continues to be an active member today. While here, she has served as a Sunday School teacher of both children and adults, a Bible school teacher, a deacon and an elder, circle chair and teacher leader, and moderator of Women of the Church. She has served on various committees and the PEEP board for many years.

While family and church and work have been priorities, Faye has also enjoyed many hobbies through the years. She’s an avid reader, has always enjoyed working in her yard and flowers, directed more than a hundred weddings from the early 1950s up until 2000, and her latest hobby is bird watching from her back window. She enjoys Bible study and some of her favorite passages come from Psalm 91 and Psalm 121. While she has always loved music and traditional hymns from her childhood, her current favorites are some that she learned later in life … “Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore,” “I Danced in the Morning,” and “Here I am, Lord.”

Faye is a gracious role model to so many and is the epitome of the word “lady.” She is full of joy and loves people in a big way. She says that she has been blessed with a wonderful childhood family, husband, son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren, as well as cherished friends and church family