Willie Mae Prince Forester, 95, of McKenzie, Tennessee, died June 26, 2021. Willie Mae was the matriarch of a clergy family well known in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. She taught English and Spanish at McKenzie High School and was a member of Shiloh Cumberland Presbyterian Church near McKenzie where she was one of the first women elders. Willie Mae was born May 19, 1926 in Savannah, Tennessee, to John Claude Prince and Willie Felix Moore Prince.

Willie Mae attended Bethel College (now Bethel University) during World War II and met the Reverend Jesse Clem Forester, known to everyone as J.C., who she married August 11, 1947 at the log cabin on the campus of Bethel College. The “Forester Boys,” (sons Steve, Byron, David, and Mark), were well known in the Cumberland Presbyterian and Bethel College communities. “Stories of their misdeeds, scrapes, adventures, and games are legendary, both within and outside the family.”

In addition to serving on church committees, teaching Sunday School, being a den mother in Cub Scouts, singing in the choir, writing a column for the Cumberland Presbyterian magazine, and parenting four boys, Willie Mae earned a master’s degree in education from the University of North Texas in the early 1960s.