Juanita Massey Stott Ketchum, 92, of Ocilla, Georgia, died April 11, 2013 at Palemon Gaskins Memorial Nursing Home in Ocilla.
Funeral services will be held 4 PM Sunday, April 14, 2013, at Ocilla United Methodist Church with the Rev. Scott Brenton and the Rev. Jim Osborne officiating. Interment will follow in the Evergreen Cemetery in Fitzgerald. The family will receive friends at the church one hour prior to the service on Sunday.
Mrs. Ketchum was born November 4, 1920, in Bronwood, Georgia to the late Edward L., Sr. and Myra Mae Sumner Massey. She graduated from Bronwood High School and attended Andrew College in Cuthbert, Georgia. She played basketball and tennis when she was in high school and remembered that her father built the first tennis court at their home in Bronwood. She moved to the community in August of 1988 after having lived in Gainesville and Tallahassee, Florida. She worked at Turner Air Force Base in Albany during WWII and was a former bookkeeper at Sears in Florence, South Carolina, McKinney-Green Mortgage Company in Gainesville, Florida, and a clerk at the Ordinary’s at the Irwin County Court house with Clarence Smith. She was also a bookkeeper for Alvin Wynn Electric in Fitzgerald, a clerk for A.S. Harris Department store and a volunteer at the polls in Ocilla for several years. She was very active in the lives of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was President of Bronwood School PTA, and President of the Ocilla Garden Club for three years. Mrs. Ketchum loved to travel with her family and friends. She often recalled taking care of Jo and Betty’s children in Ocilla and staying with Harmon’s daughter Ashley for six weeks in Orlando. She liked to travel with groups and she had several traveling partners, including Helen Harper and Doris Vickers. Among group trips taken were to New England States, the border of Canada, Holland, Michigan for the Tulip Festival and she recalled traveling to Nashville, Tennessee with Billy’s mother: Louise Wingate. She fondly recalled the two-week camping trips every summer at Smokemont near Cherokee, North Carolina, when her children were growing up. She was a member of Ocilla United Methodist Church, active in the OUMC Guild and she sang in the Sanctuary Choir.
She is survived by three daughters: Carolyn Carter of Ocilla, Jo (Billy) Wingate of Lax and Betty Ross of Ocilla; sons: Richard Stott of Tappahannock, Virginia and Harmon (Cathy) Stott of Ocilla; twelve grandchildren: Kim Elliott, Jennifer Edwards, William Wingate, Richard Wingate, Merideth Branch, Bert Rachals, Stacie Dean, Ashley Reeves, Stott Carter, Suzanne Bohler, Laura Covington and Lindsey McMahan; great-grandchildren: Erin Elliott, Blake Edwards, Quint Wingate, Gabe Wingate, Gray Wingate, Ben Wingate, Alec Wingate, Caroline Dean, Allison Dean, Natalie Dean, Bailey Reeves, Lexi Reeves, Robbie Rachals, Katie Rachals, Shaw Branch, Jeb Branch, James Allen Bryant, Morgan Bryant, Cason Covington, Tristin Bohler, Ashton Bohler, Cleve McMahan and Cash McMahan. Along with her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband of 37 years: James Richard Stott and husband: Clarence Ketchum; brother: Edward “Ed” Massey, Jr., and sisters: Eleanor Ketchum and Marion McGill.