Toombs County, Georgia Obituaries

Toombs County, GA Obituaries

Click on the county for ftp files of USGenWeb cemetery information.

Vidalia - Ebin Lane, Jr., 86, expired October 28 at Meadows Regional Medical Center. He was a native of Jefferson County and was the father of Julian, Palmer, James, Marvin, Mark, David, and Patricia.

Visitation: Friday at the funeral home.

Funeral: 2:00 p. m. Saturday at St. Luke A. M.E. Church, Lyons.

Burial: Oak Park Cemetery.

Vidalia Funeral Home.

Savannah Morning News, posted Friday, November 1, 2002.

Ebin Lane, Jr. Obituary - Savannah Morning News - Archives.

Vidalia - Elouise Smith, 77, expired October 26 at St. Josephs Hospital in Savannah. She was a native of Screven County and the mother of Milton, Alonzo, and Chester Smith and Lorance Johnson.

Visitation: 7:00-9:00 p. m. Friday at Grants Chapel Church.

Funeral: 12:00 Noon Saturday at St. Paul A. M.E. Church.

Burial: Eternal Glory Gardens.

Vidalia Funeral Home.

Savannah Morning News, posted Friday, November 1, 2002.

Elouise Smith Obituary - Savannah Morning News - Archives.

Vidalia - Mrs. Barbara J. Tucker, 63, died October 31.

Visitation: beginning at 2:00 p. m. Sunday, funeral home.

Funeral: 4:00 p. m. Sunday, Ronnie L. Stewart Family Funeral Service Chapel of Vidalia.

Burial: 1:00 p. m. Monday, Georgia Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Milledgeville.

Remembrances: Gideons International or the American Bible Society.

Savannah Morning News, posted Friday, November 1, 2002.

Mrs. Barbara J. Tucker Obituary - Savannah Morning News - Archives.

rossiter@savannahnow.com

Sema Wilkes is a Savannah legend, famous for her Southern cooking and warm hospitality. She's pictured here in a photo dated 1952 (Mrs. Wilkes is seated, far left) with family and guests from her boardinghouse, now a restaurant.

Savannah - Sema Wilkes, nationally renowned for her preparation and family style-service of hearty, Southern home cooking, died after a short illness Thursday morning. She was 95.

Family members opened the doors to Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room at 107 W. Jones St. on Thursday. The staff of 20 served breakfast and supper to more than 200 visitors, just as their boss had for more than 55 years.

But without the grandmotherly firgure presiding over her guest, business was anything but usual.

"It was hard work that got her where she was and where she got to," said Ronnie Thompson, who manages the restaurant band is married to Wilkes' granddaughter, Marcia. "If everybody had done as much in their lifetime as much as she did with hers, it certainly would've been a better place to live."

Born in Aimwell in Toombs County, Wilkes started her career in 1943, when she agreed to help out in the kitchen of the boarding house where her late husband, Lois H. Wilkes, was staying.

The part-time job led to a thriving business after the couple bought and restored the home in 1965 as part of a Savannah Historic Foundation project. Her restaurant's reputation, built mostly on word-of-mouth from her customers, mad Mrs. Wilkes' a fixture in historic downtown and an ambassador for the city and state, family and acquaintances said.

"She is part of the heritage of Savannah," said Esther Shaver, who owns E. Shaver Booksellers on Bull Street.

"People would come into the bookstore and say, 'I met Mrs. Wilkes,'" Shaver said. "When you know that someone has just been a part of downtown and a fixture downtown, it's the end of an era. Everyone just loved that lady."

Wilkes traveled to other countries to promote tourism in the South and Savannah through her cooking.

Among the streams of vistors who waited for her savory helping of fired chicken, barbecued pork, corn bread and turnip greens, were famous men and women like Robert Duval, Kate Smith and Gregory Peck.

Thousands of lesser-known customers trekked to Mrs. Wilkes', where she gave blessings before they spooned heaping portions from huge bowls on the tables.

At one point, the eatery's practice of re-serving uneaten portions led to health department investigations. But with one of the oldest restaurant licenses in the county, some argued that Wilkes' establishment was exempt from later regulations against faimly-style service. In any case, the business continued after a compromise that required food to be reheated before being served again.

By far, most attention lavished on the restaurant was positive.

Early 1990's photo of Sema Wilkes. --Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News.

Wilkes and her restaurant often have been profiled in newspaper and magazine stories. She also published several cookbooks, authographing thousands of them herself.

Paula Deen of The Lady & Sons, whose downtown eatery rivals Mrs. Wilkes' with its similar Southern food dishes, said the elder woman's business sense was heroic and set her apart.

"She and my grandmother were about the same age, both in the restaurant business when it wasn't real poplular for women to be out in the business world," Deen said. "They were pioneers for women in the restaurant business."

Wade Layton, who lived next door to Wilkes, watched her business blossom after her began working with her through his Coastal Paper-Sail Chemical Co. business in 1946.

"It is amazing. She never even thought about quitting." said Layton, who supplied Mrs. Wilkes' with paper towels and napkins. "Most everybody else looks forward to the day when they can retire. That was the last thing in her mind was retiring."

The tradition she began continued Thursday, Visitors lined up as usual for breakfast and lunch at the home.

Thompson didn't tell anyone other than staff about the matriarch's passing at the restaurant.

But word did filter out.

City Council members, who have eaten pre-meeting lunches catered by Mrs. Wilkes' for the past five years, spoke of her legacy over their fried chicken and beef stew helpings.

"Hopefully, her legend continues through her restaurant and family." said Mayor Floyd Adams, Jr. "She has brought international attention to the community and we thank her for that."

The restaurant will be closed today and Monday, Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Monday Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church on Calhoun Square.

Her dining room, which will continue to be operated by her family, will reopen next week. Their routine is well-established.

"We don't need any recipes anymore," Wilkes once said in a 1984 interview. "We just know what it takes to make food taste good."

Still, Mrs. Wilkes' won't be the same without her, Thompson said.

"Anybody who is real successful like that, they have to be a unique person," he said. "She just cared a lot about other people than herself. She just always did whatever it took to make people happy."

Savannah Morning News, posted Friday, November 1, 2002, page 1A.

'I thought she'd go on forever'

Jane Fishman

Savannah Morning News

Early 1990's photo of Sema Wilkes. --Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News.

A year ago this month, Sema Wilkes - the woman everyone calls Mrs. Wilkes - went out to get the mail, tripped over her slippers and broke her hip. Not good for a 94-year-old. But she rested and she mened. And the day after she left the hospital she returned to her post at the West Jones Street restaurant, resting on a cane, to authograph her cookbook for customers.

Six months later, wearing dressy shoes from church, she slipped again.

This time she broke her other hip as well as the thumb on her right hand.

Once again, she rested, she mended and maneuvering a walker, returned to the restaurant to resume her other chore. Reciting the blessing. Every day, at 11 a.m., Mrs. Wilkes stood up, as she had for the past 60 years, rang the dinner bell and delivered grace. "Good Lord, bless this food to us, and us to thy service. Amen."

"I've never seen her stop," said her grand-daughter, Marsha Thompson. "I've never seen her do anything but work."

This time was different.

Three weeks ago, after a fainting spell in the restaurant and a short stay in the hospital, Mrs. Wilkes, who had never been ill, never taken any medicine and up until three years ago, still handled the money at breakfast, fell out of her chair at home and suffered a stroke.

She went in and out of consciousness - "but mostly out," said Thompson - before passing away Thursday at Hospice Savannah. "I know it sounds silly and foolish," Thompson continues, tears filling her eyes, "but I thought she'd go on forever. The last time she appeared conscious I asked her how she was doing, 'Not good,' she answered."

Sema was born in Vidalia. Her family farmed. But her mother died when she was 7; her father when she was 12. By then, Sema, no stranger in the kitchen, was raising her two younger brothers. At 16, she married her husband, Lois. For the next 20 years, they farmed corn, dug sweet potatoes, picked collards and gathered pecans.

But in 1942, with the country at war, the Wilkeses learned that the federal government had condemned their land for a new airfield.

Most of her relatives moved to Jacksonville, Fla., but Lois headed to Savannah where he found a job in the shipyrard and the railroad. He also found a room in a boardinghouse, the one on West Jones Street that would become known as Mrs. Wilkes'. Sema stayed behind with the children but visited on the weekends. It wasn't long before she was helping with the cooking and the serving. Then the place became hers.

At first Mrs. Wilkes only served borders. Then she started letting them bring in friends and neighbors.

Thompson remembers people eating around three large tables and then lounging on sofas and chairs. Now the restaurant has eight tables.

I can still remember seeing Mama making sandwiches for the borders who wouldn't be coming home for lunch," she said. "Everyone calls her 'Mama.'" said Thompson. "Or, if we're talking to the public, Mrs. Wilkes. She was 40 when I was born and she felt she was too young to be a grandmother."

The business has always been a family affair.

These days, Thompson's husband, Ronnie, runs the show. Her mother, Margie Martin, who also worked for Savannah Electric and wrote most of the first cookbook (which has sold 300,000 copies) does the bookkeeping. Her husand, Bill, who retired from Union Camp, runs the cash register.

Thompson, who spent five years as a flight attendant in Atlanta, makes sure the customers are happy. Her son, Ryon, who just earned his master's in business administration from Georgia Southern University at night, while working at Mrs. Wilkes' during the day, does a little bit of everyting. So did his sister, Emily, until she stook a job with the Savannah College of Art and Design.

While Tuesday nights were reserved for the Tybee Supper Club, most of Mrs. Wilkes' other meals were eaten at her restaurant.

"Except for the weekends when she had cereal, she had eggs, bacon and grits every day of her life." Thompson said. "And chicken wings for lunch."

She also got her hair done every Friday and never missed a night of cleansing and creaming her face.

"It's so hard to think a woman who worked that hard could be that vain about her age and could care that much about how she looked," Thompson said. "But she always wanted do do her best. And she never wasted a thing. In the kitchen, she used everything. The same thing with her body. She got every ounce out of it."

Jane Fishman

gofish5@earthlink.net

652-0313

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