DILLON – Jessie Mae Samaha, 85, died December 26, 2018, at McLeod Medical Center Florence, SC. Funeral services were held Saturday, January 5, 2019, at 3:00 p.m. at Main Street United Methodist Church with interment in Greenlawn Cemetery. Rev. Henry Altman and Rev. Mike Rouse officiated. Visitation was held prior to the service in Asbury Hall from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.
She was born January 25, 1933, in Dadeville, Alabama to Jesse Andrew Harrelson and Addie Leurah Futral Harrelson. She was orphaned by high school with her mother dying when she was three and her father by the age of fourteen. She then went to live with her grandmother. She excelled in athletics and academics, playing several sports and skipping several grades. She was at the top of her class and had aspirations of becoming a doctor but her grandmother discouraged this.
She married Lee Cole Smith with whom she had Stanley Lee Smith. They lived in Florida when her husband died suddenly. She moved to South Carolina and met and married George Thomas Samaha, Jr. with whom she had Sarita Samaha Bethea who gave her her only grandchildren, Joanne Michele, and Fitzhugh Lee Bethea, IV. She was a talented and industrious woman and had many jobs that included: log truck driver, teacher, computer programmer, accountant, and seamstress. She worked at her seamstress shop in Dillon until a week before she died and would have worked until the day had it not been for Christmas.
She was a member of First Baptist Church in Dillon, where she sang in the choir, served as training union leader, puppet ministry leader, and women’s prison ministry leader. In recent years she attended Main Street United Methodist Church so she could worship with her daughter and her family. She was a member of the Sarah Allen Handbell Choir and she served as a substitute Sunday school teacher. Mae enjoyed being a member of the Red Hat Society. Additionally, she was a member of the MacAruthur Avenue Players. She was awarded Dillon County Volunteer of the year in the 1990’s.
She is predeceased by her first husband, parents, son, and sister, Melvadene Patterson Coker. She is survived by her daughter, son in law, Fitzhugh Lee Bethea, III, grandchildren, niece, Sheryl Allinder, nephew Randy Patterson, step-children, Gwen Smythe, Lee Smith, Jr., Tommy Samaha, Susan DeClue, and Michele Robinson and the hundreds of people who knew her as ” Granny Mae” or “Miss Mae” and who she loved and cared for as if they were her own. Also special to her was Reggie Hotaling and Amber Hotaling Alford. Her life positively affected all those who knew her. She will be deeply and widely missed.
Memorials may be made to First Baptist Church, 400 North Fourth Avenue, Dillon, SC 29536, Main Street United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 229, Dillon, SC 29536 and Dillon County Animal Shelter, 1020 Old Latta Highway, Dillon, SC 29536.
You may sign the online guestbook at www.kannadayfuneralhome.com.
