Died November 6, 2015, she was 95.

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:15

The Great Commission was truly the Life Mission of Maree Elizabeth Macon Blackwell, a member of New Hope Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Grace Presbytery). She was born July 5, 1920, in Davidson County, Tennessee, to Frances Elizabeth Burkhalter and Earley Cleveland Macon but lived most of her 95 years in the Birmingham area. She graduated from Shades Valley High School and began attending Athens College at the age of fifteen. It was in Athens where she met and married John Madison “J.M.” Blackwell on December 20, 1936.

Maree Elizabeth served as a city missionary for the Birmingham Presbytery. She served in Sunday Schools, Bible Schools and afternoon bible programs all over the Birmingham area and in Fairview, Tennessee. She helped to start Bryan Memorial Church as an outreach of Third Presbyterian Church in Birmingham. When she was on vacation in Panama City, Florida, she would find a church to attend. She would speak to anyone she met about the Good News of Jesus Christ, who came to die for our sins so that we could live with Him forever in Heaven!

Maree went back to college when she was almost forty years old, completed her first degree at Samford University in 1961 and went on to complete her PhD in record time at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. During that time she was also head of the English department and librarian at Calera High School. In 1966 she went to UAB where she directed the student teaching program in Secondary Education for ten years and was also Graduate Studies Instructor at Miles College. She went to Cali, Colombia, and was instrumental in starting a college there.

One sabbatical year, she lived and taught at Hong Kong Bible College in China. She was always generous with her donations of time, money, home and any support needed for her missionary friends and the more than forty foreign exchange students who she sponsored.

Posted by request.