Date of birth: 18 May 1861
Date of death: 06 Oct 1946

---

Burial Information

Section 12 (Click Here for Section Map)
Cemetery: Odd Fellows Cemetery
Plot: 0007-05
Status: Occupied

---

Notes

Obituary

Mrs Sallie C. McCain
Passes In Lexington

Beloved Member
Of Pioneer Family
Was 85 Years Old   

Mrs. Sallie Cole McCain, a member of one Holmes County’s pioneer families, passed away at her home in Lexington Friday after a long illness. She was 85 years old.

Funeral services were held at the Presbyterian Church in Lexington Saturday afternoon, October 5th, at four o’clock. The Rev. R. G. Valen- I tine pastor, officiated. Interment was in the Lexington cemetery with Southern Undertaking Association in charge of arrangements.

Mrs. McCain was born and reared in Holmes county and lived practically her entire life here. She was a lady of unexcelled character and I her wonderful personality endeared' her to members of her family and a wide circle of personal friends.

Surviving are one daughter, Mrs. Frances McCain Keirn, of Lexington; one son, Watt McCain, of Orangeburg, S. C.; a sister, Mrs. M. L. Stigler, of Yazoo City, and a brother, Edwin Cole, of Tampa, Fla., also survive.

There are two grandchildren, Watt McCain, III, of Orangeburg, and Mrs. R. L. (Sarah) Beare, Jr., of Jackson, Tenn.; two great-grandchildren, Robert Beare, III, and Mary Katharine Beare, of Jackson, Tenn.

The Advertiser received from! Tom Shepherd today a lovely tribute to "Miss Sallie” as she was affectionally known, which we will carry next week. Lack of space prevented its publication this week.

SOURCE: The Lexington advertiser (Lexington, MS), October 10, 1946, Vol. 109, No. 25, pg. 1

---

Tom Shepherd Pays
Tribute To Friend
Mrs. Sallie C. McCain

In the passing of “Miss Sallie” as we knew and loved her, death has removed the last connecting link with our parents and the heads of the families of our neighborhood that I have enjoyed and to those of my generation, we have seen them go, one by one. Naturally we will always miss them for they formed a part of my boyhood.

When you have lived next door to one since you were born, they become a part of you, more like a member of the family than a neighbor. “Miss Sallie” occupied this place in all of our hearts. She helped raise me along with her boy, Harry McCain, who was a boyhood chum and pal and this friendship continued in our manhood. His sudden death several years ago was like the loss of a brother. I always knew Miss Sallie loved me like a son and when Harry died I went over to see her that week and on my visits home as I always tried to do for years back. She burst into tears as I entered her room and said: “Tom you will have to be my boy now." No one will ever know the grief that I felt in those few minutes or the sorrow I had in my heart for her at this great loss of her boy. It has always overwhelmed me when I see a parent sustain the loss of one of their children, but I knew the sorrow she was bearing in her declining years and 1 also knew the pride she had felt in him as he went out into the world and made good. And then to have all this wiped away and replaced with grief in those happy thoughts and memories.

Miss Sallie not only helped rear me, correct me as a boy and advise me when I became grown, but she has also helped Grace and I raise our two precious children, Penelope and Banks. They learned to love her in their babyhood and to call her “Sa-sa.” She would have it no other way but know her by this endearing name as long as she lived. The family love she bore for me, my sister and brother, was magnified in the love she felt for our children.

I often think of our neighborhood as one that is most unusual. Every home and piece of property dates back of the families living there yet remains in these groups. We learned to love our neighbors as children for they remained the same interested group in each other. Naturally this affection grew deeper in our hearts as we became older and could appreciate what they had meant to all of us. There were Dr. and Mrs. J. R. Watson, Mr. and Mrs. B. S. Beall, Mr. and Mrs. John H. McBee, Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Hoskins and my blessed father and mother, Dr. and Mrs. B. A. Shepherd. And the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches and properties that stood apart but carried our deepest respect and admiration for the work carried on for the Master all these many years.

But all of these family names of the older generation are gone now in the death of Mrs. McCain. It has all been such a happy experience and will be treasured the remainder of our lives as the sweetest memories we ever can know.

In her last illness, I tried to visit Miss Sallie each weekend for I was afraid she would not be there the next and last weekend, she was gone. And all during these days of sickness, Miss Sallie never lost that interest and alertness pertaining to the welfare or the upsets of the neighborhood. She could see the silvery linings of the clouds always and when we thought that days were dark, she could brush away these fears and make us ashamed that we ever entertained such ideas, it was women like her that bore children that carried on and made America the great nation we enjoy today.

And may I pay the highest tribute to her daughter, Mrs. Frances A. Keirn, who comforted and cared for her so faithfully in those trying days of her last illness. I have never been any daughter serve with more devotion or unceasing attention to any detail that made for her comfort or to lighten the long days of confinement of her sick bed. It was one of the most beautiful and living expressions of love I have ever witnessed.

We are going to miss Miss Sallie for the rest of our lives but she will always have a place in our hearts and memories that belong to her alone. Each of those noble people in our neighborhood that have passed on will share a place also, all combining to make us realize that the greatest privilege God has given us is to know and love people as we pass through life. It is good to have neighbors, it is greater to have friends. It has been a glorious experience to have lived in a neighborhood we knew so long as our part of Lexington..’’

• Tom Shepherd

SOURCE: The Lexington Advertiser (Lexington, MS), October 24, 1946, Vol. 109, No. 27, pg. 6, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024271/1946-10-24/ed-1/seq-6/

---

Family Members

Parents
William Ferguson Cole
1818–1901

Aurelia Qualls Walton Cole
1833–1894

Spouse
Watt McCain
1853–1909 (m. 1886 - Holmes Co., MS)

Siblings
Jesse B. Cole
1854–1904

William Qualls Cole
1857–1924

Francis Thomas Cole
1860–1941

Edwin Anthony Cole
1866–1957

Walter Steele Cole
1866–1925

Lina Walton Cole Stigler
1868–1952

Children
Frances McCain Keirn
1887–1983

Watt McCain
1903–1990

---

Research Notes

Marriage date obtained from "Mississippi Marriages, 1800-1911" records on familysearch.org.

More information, family relationships, and images may be found by CLICKING HERE (external link)

---

Walking directions