Couple in ministry pass on same day due to COVID
When Larry Reece and his brothers, Morris and Billy, misbehaved as boys growing up in Whitestone, they knew punishment was on the way.
“Daddy would tell them they were going to get a whippin’,” recalled their sister Vickie, who kept a vigil with her sisters Alice, Sandy and Becky until the time arrived when their father, Horace, came home.
“The boys knew it was coming, so they all three would get in the bed at 5:30 and act like they were asleep before Daddy got home,” Vickie said. “But he finally would fulfill his promise. We had linoleum floors, and they had little squares, so he had the boys stand in those squares and take their punishment.”
Later in life, bending over in the little squares turned to kneeling — and for a much better outcome. Larry and Anne Reece’s daughter, Stephanie Reece Jones, tells the story.
“One of Dad’s preacher friends drove by the house one day; he was an evangelist and would drive all over the country preaching,” she said. “His car was wore out, and he came by to talk to Dad and said, ‘Brother Reece, I’d just like for you to pray with me, that the Lord would help me be able to find a car.’ Dad said, ‘OK, we’ll get down here and pray.’ Mom had went to the back of the house and didn’t know about it.”
Or did she?
“Mama and Daddy had just bought a brand-new car a few months before, and when they got up from praying, Dad said, ‘The Lord told me to give you my car,’” Stephanie continued. “So he handed him the keys and Mom walked though in just a little bit and said, ‘I know, the Lord told you to give him the car,’ and she just walked on through. They were pretty in sync. Not many husbands would give their car away and their wife not be mad!”
Less than two weeks ago on Oct. 23, the Rev. Larry Reece passed away at Piedmont Mountainside Hospital after battling COVID. Twelve hours later, his wife of 58 years, Anne Carlisle Reece, also passed away from coronavirus on Oct. 24, but farther down the road at Northside-Cherokee Hospital. A Baptist preacher for over 40 years — and pastor of Mountain View Baptist for 25 years — family members said Larry, 78, and Anne, 77, were inseparable in ministry.
“Mom was in everything he did,” Stephanie said. “She worked there at Canaanland (Christian School in Resaca) so we could have tuition, (sister) Stacey and me. Mama kept kids at home mostly, but she gave up those years so we could finish school there. That was a selfless thing she did for us.”
There were other acts of selflessness as well.
“One of the things that came out at the funeral was that their lives were dedicated to serving the Lord,” noted Vickie’s husband, Michael White. “They never took a vacation — their vacation was to go to revival. Larry gave me a Scofield’s Bible. Vickie’s dad (Horace) started Mount Zion in Jasper, and I wasn’t a Christian when we started dating. The church led me to the Lord.”
Daughter Stacey Reece Prather noted her mother was a Sunday-school teacher, and vacations always revolved around ministry.
“They weren’t planned on what we wanted to do, but where camp meeting was,” she confirmed. “If we went to Florida, it was a camp meeting in Florida. If it was somewhere else, it was a revival or all-day camp meetings.”
A special relationship grew between the Reeces and the Whites’ son, Chris.
“When it stormed, Chris would go sit on the wood box in the kitchen,” said Stacey. “He’d say. ‘Mama Anne, what is that racket?’ And she’d say, ‘It’s all right, it’s just God clapping his hands.’”
Michael revealed Chris died at age 7 of a congenital heart defect.
“Anne kept him during the day when we worked,” he said. “He started calling her Mama Anne and Larry was Uncle Papa. They just loved him, and of course when he died they were devastated just like us. But that really gave us a bond that went on until they passed away. We always had that bond because they were so good at taking care of him, and loved him as much as we did.”
A turnaround
Ricky Reece said his father Larry’s life was turned around in the country music capital of the world.
“He was going to Nashville to try and play country music years ago, and he saw a bad thing happen — he saw someone get shot at a gas station,” he said. “That sorta changed his life after that. His hero was Aunt Mamie Hulsey, who helped lead him to the Lord.”
Ricky will always remember his father as a “simple, hardworking man (who) always had a big smile.” Larry also had a passion for spreading the gospel.
“There used to be 30 to 40 big trucks lined up in front of our house going to Georgia Marble, and my dad would go down through there passing out plan of salvation tracts to all the truck drivers,” he said. “He used to have me mow our grass when I was young in the 1970s and ‘80s, and he’d always want me to write ‘Jesus Saves’ on the bank. I would go with him on Saturdays to Blue Ridge (where) he’d preach on the radio station, WPPL, and in the nursing homes around Jasper. He liked to help missionaries (evangelism) was something that was pretty important to him. Both my parents were a great testimony to me.”
Larry worked at Mosley Tractor & Supply as a diesel mechanic and welder, and was youth minister and choir director at Mount Zion Baptist in Jasper.
“A lot of the kids he ministered to were at the funeral home, and came to the funeral,” Michael said. “They all just loved Larry and Anne so much, and spoke highly of him. While he was at Mount Zion they started a youth group, and they tried to come up with a name and finally called it the FBI, which meant Faith Bearing Individuals.
“The one thing everybody said at the funeral home was how sad this is, but sweet. Larry died about 12 hours before she did, and we really weren’t expecting him to die. They had called the family in for Anne, but not for Larry. Everybody said that he was being a gentleman, that he went on ahead so he could welcome her when she got to heaven.”
Apart, yet still together
Michael said the Reeces were able to communicate by ‘Face Time’ (video) just a few hours before he passed away.
“The thing about them was they were a couple that were always together — if you saw one, you saw the other,” he added. “They loved each other so much.”
Stephanie said her parents loved the Atlanta Braves and watched them every day they played.
“After Mama and Daddy died, Stacey came in the house and turned the TV on, and all that was on the TV was about ‘The Braves go to the World Series!’,” she said.
The couple also took the family out to eat almost every Sunday after church at Two Brothers Bar-B-Que in Ball Ground. The popular and venerable eatery closed for good recently and Stephanie quipped on Facebook, ‘Two Brothers closed when Mama and Daddy went to heaven.’
Stacey added, “Not only were us three kids special to them, but Daddy and his six brothers and sisters were so special and so close. They got together every single year until the first one of them died earlier this year.”
Michael said it was at one of those family get-togethers while dating Vickie — when he saw their love for each other — that he thought to himself, “I’d like to be a part of this.”
Stephanie said at visitation one of the women who rode the church bus to youth group as a girl from an unstable family remarked, “If it hadn’t been for these two picking me up, I don’t know where I’d be.”
Family members have no doubt where Larry and Anne Reece are now.