Frances O. Swain

A graveside service will be held at 2:00 pm Sunday at Asbury Memorial United Methodist Church Cemetery with the Rev. Oscar Dowdle, chaplain at Givens Estates, officiating. A memorial service will be held at a later date at Givens Estates.

Mrs. Swain was born February 11. 1903, in Winston-Salem, the second daughter of N.R. and Roberta Oliver. The family moved to Kernersville and she attended Salem Academy. She taught school for a year in Goldsboro before visiting her sister in 1923 in Asheville where she met and married the late William A. Swain, Jr., to whom she was married for 60 years until his death in January,1983.

Mrs. Swain worked at Ivey’s Department Store for more than 40 years and she was active in the PTA at Grace Elementary School (forerunner of Ira B. Jones School), serving several terms as its president. She was an active member of Central United Methodist Church from 1923, in the choir, the Roberts Bible Class, and the United Methodist Women. She was recently honored as having the longest unbroken membership in Central U.M. Church. She was also a member of the Colonial Literary Club, the Chatmore Club, and several bridge clubs.

She is survived by four children, Dr. William A. Swain III and wife Molly of Oneonta, NY, David l. Swain and wife Betty of Lake Junaluska, Joe O. Swain and wife Barbara of Corvallis, OR, and Sally S. Mull and husband Vernon of Greensboro; fourteen grandchildren and twenty great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Givens Health Center Landscaping Fund, 2360 Sweeten Creek Road, Asheville, NC 28803. Groce Funeral Home on Patton Avenue is in charge of the arrangements.