Clara Flowers, 101, devout churchgoer

Clara Flowers always greeted Susan Rumble with outstretched arms whenever she paid a visit.

They’d hug each other, then sit in rocking chairs. Mrs. Flowers would talk about the old days. She had plenty to tell.

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Lilburn Baptist Church

Clara Mae Flowers celebrates her 100th birthday with Susan Rumble at Lilburn Baptist Church.

Mrs. Flowers lived through two world wars and the Great Depression. She and her husband of 72 years, the late C. Lloyd Flowers, once farmed in Lilburn. Mrs. Flowers knew how to milk a cow and wring a chicken’s neck.

“She was a hard, hard worker,” said Mrs. Rumble, a church friend. “She’d do chores during the day, then sit down at night and sew.”

Clara Mae Wofford Flowers, 101, of Lilburn died Monday at Emory-Eastside Medical Center in Snellville. The funeral is 11 a.m. today at the Lilburn/Tucker chapel of Bill Head Funeral Home, which is handling arrangements.

Mrs. Flowers was born in Canton but grew up in Buford. After graduating from high school, she met her husband while riding the train into Atlanta. They married in 1928 and lived in College Park for a few years before settling in Lilburn, then a rural outpost.

“They grew corn, raised cows and did that type of stuff for years,” said her daughter, Carolyn Pursell of Lilburn. “Until she died, she’d lived in the same house that they built in 1933.”

In 1939, Mrs. Flowers joined First Baptist Church of Lilburn. She was that congregation’s oldest living active member. She was a “prayer warrior” for anyone who needed it. A favorite song was “Jesus Loves Me.”

“Last week, we sang that song together,” Mrs. Rumble said. “I also read a Bible passage to her about Jesus preparing a place for us in heaven.”

Mrs. Flowers may have embraced church, but that wasn’t necessarily the case for her husband or all eight children.

A son, Doug Flowers of Lilburn, attended service with her regularly in his younger years.

For that, “I was the chosen one, her baby,” he said. “My father thought religion was a personal choice. I went to church with her and took the path she thought should be followed.”

Her daughter, Mrs. Pursell, is trying to imagine life without her mother being just a phone call away.

“I’m 78 years old,” she said. “I have never gone to bed without talking to my mother. That will be a strange feeling.”

Other survivors include three daughters, Loretta Caudell and Ann Carroll, both of Lilburn, and Mary Hughes of Lawrenceville; three sons, Robert Flowers, Billy Flowers and Wayne Flowers, all of Lilburn; 16 grandchildren; 27 great-grandchildren; and 17 great-great-grandchildren.