Max Brannon & Sons

Mary Etta Brookshire was born December 20, 1920. She entered heaven at 11:42 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 2, 2017. She was totally calm.

One of 12 children, she grew up during the Great Depression. To help support her family, though an excellent student and life-long avid reader, she dropped out at age 16 and became a spinner in a cotton mill. She gave her earnings to her mother. She worked all her life.

Eventually, she worked in Echota Cotton Mill where the Rev. Robert Brookshire was an overseer. She met and married his youngest son Lester in 1941. He was a weaver.

Lester became a Technical Sergeant and Flight Engineer and Waist Gunner for heavy bombers B- 24s and B-17s, flying 25 bombing missions over Germany and occupied countries in 1944, receiving many medals including a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. Mary worked at Combustion Engineering as what is now called a “Rosie the Riveter.” Being tiny, she was hired as a bucker because she could crawl inside the wings of war planes and hold a piece of steel over a hole while a lady on the outside drove a rivet against it. She was building the planes while her husband flew in them.

Mary continued working in various jobs including carpet mills until about age 70. She was a member of Pleasant Valley South Baptist Church.

Mrs. Brookshire was preceded to heaven by her parents, Alex and Mary Wofford; by siblings, Buford Wofford, killed in WWII, Ann Crump, James Wofford, Drucie Wofford, Kathleen Riley, Francis Scruggs, Gene Wofford, Dean Corlie, Irene Wofford, Barbara Wofford; youngest son, Barry Brookshire; and husband, Lester Brookshire Sr.

Mrs. Brookshire is survived by a brother, Don