Sallie May Cook Lanier

Sallie May Cook Lanier, age 97, of Clarkesville, Georgia, passed away on Thanksgiving, November 23, 2023 at Scuppernong, her daughter Sarah’s home, in the presence of family, friends, and caretakers.

Mrs. Lanier was preceded in death by her parents Homer Cook, Sr. and Annette Granger Cook, her husband, William Chandler Lanier, Sr., and her daughter, Sallie Lanier.

Survivors include her son and daughter-in-law, William C. Lanier, Jr. and Joy, of Jonesboro; daughter, Sarah A. Lanier, of Clarkesville; son and daughter-in-law, Homer Cook Lanier and Miriam "Mimi", of Lebanon; her brother, Homer Cook, Jr., of Clarkesville; four grandchildren: Bethany Lanier, Anne Marie Lanier Maltbie, Leigh Ann Lanier Judd, and David Lanier; and four great grandchildren: William Shawn Maltbie, and Harrison, Yates, and Olympia Mae Judd.

Mrs. Lanier was born on January 20, 1926, in Sparta, Tennessee, grew up in Covington, Georgia, and was educated at North Georgia College, Bryn Mayr, and Johns Hopkins University. Mrs. Lanier was a pastor’s wife at Wadley Baptist church for seven years, and a missionary with the Southern Baptist Mission Board in Israel, where she served as treasurer and Hebrew linguist, for 29 years. Locally in Clarkesville, after retirement in 1989, she was a co-founder of the Soque River Watershed Association.

Memorial Services will be held at 11:00 AM, Saturday, December 9, 2023, at the Clarkesville Baptist Church with Rev. Grady Walden and Rev. Hobie (Homer) Wood officiating.

The family will receive friends from 10:00 a.m. until the service hour at the church.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to a charity of your choice or to her granddaughter Bethany’s work as the principal of a school for refugee children in Lebanon, Triumphant Mercy Zahle Center. (Tax deductible donations can be sent to : Sunergos Missions, INC, 5095 Bayberry Ct. Cumming, GA 30040-9409. Please make a note that the gift is going to Bethany Lanier. Donations can also be sent through Zelle at [email protected].) OR to Dugit Ministries in Tel Aviv, Israel, where Chandler Lanier pioneered a ministry that serves both Arabs and Jews. To send a gift from the States: Dugit Ministries, P.O. Box 60099, Jacksonville, FL, 32236.

Arrangements have been entrusted to the Whitfield Funeral Homes & Crematory, North Chapel at 245 Central Avenue, Demorest, Georgia 30535. Telephone: 706-778-1700.