My wife, Barbara, and I attended, on Sat., Oct. 24, 2020, the 2:00 p.m. funeral of Mrs. Margie Guynelle Owens Rainey, 74, a Greer native and 1964 Blue Ridge High graduate. She died on Oct. 19.
The funeral was held at Washington Baptist Church (Hwy. 14, north of Greer, SC), the home church for Mrs. Rainey and her husband, Lawrence Earl Rainey, Jr.
Barbara knew Gynelle and Earl Rainey from “car cruise-ins.” Some cruise-ins were staged at the Lil Rebel restaurant on Hwy 290. Car shows and cruise-ins grew popular in the 1980s — when some older cars started becoming classics, sources say.
Barbara and her late husband, Toy Richard Robertson, drove their black 1955 Chevrolet 210 and their 1979 burgundy Monte Carlo to car cruise-ins. Earl drove a 1957 black Ford, and Guynelle drove a red-and-white 1956 Ford.
I did not know Guynelle but knew Earl. He and his parents attended Faith Temple when I was a boy. Earl’s parents were Mr. Lawrence E. Rainey, Sr. (May 6, 1897—Jan. 9, 1974), and Mrs. Jeanette S. Rainey (Sept. 1906— May 31, 1973). Their remains are buried in the Faith Temple cemetery.
The late Pastor James H. Thompson sometimes asked Earl Jr. to play hymns on the piano at Faith Temple (in the original church building).
Earl’s mother was a piano player and piano teacher. Around my fourth-grade year, I took lessons for a while. My late sister, Shirley, then in first grade, also took lessons. One lesson cost 50 cents. Mrs. Rainey was kind and patient.
I learned some songs but was more interested in what Earl was doing. Earl, born in 1945 and two years older than I, created a trail down through the woods behind his house and built a motor-less dragster out of wood and wheels. He let me drive his cart on that trail. He created bows from hickory saplings and sold me one for 50 cents. I lost track of his family as life moved on. I heard he became a good mechanic.
Barbara and I viewed photos of Earl and Guynelle’s family before the funeral began. The Rev. Keith Kelley spoke, followed by the Rev. Joel Rainey, the older of the Rainey’s two sons.
“I learned from her,” he said.
His mother was affected by dementia for five years and eventually lived in a nursing home. Joel recently visited his mother and heard her amazingly sing “every word of every hymn” played on a nurse’s phone. When she sang “Blessed Assurance, he was moved.
“I lost my control at that,” he said. “In that room, I saw a woman who was blessed. She was blessed because she was filled.”
He praised his father for the quality of care his father gave his mother.
“Only one individual could love her more than Daddy,” he said, “and He’s got her now.”
The Rev. Billy Cashion, a former pastor at Washington Baptist Church (WBC), read Ecclesiastes 3:4: [There is] “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
“‘A time to laugh’ reminds me of her,” he said. “I loved that lady.”
He told of their good-natured exchanges. She told him that she was named “Guynelle” because her father’s name was “Guy” and her father’s mule was named “Nell.”
Pastor Cashion said that Guynelle had a gift of hospitality and passed down her wit. He visited the family when the Rainey sons, Joel and Jason, were small. Joel once told him, “I’m gonna be Superman.” Another time, Joel said, “I’m gonna be a preacher, just like you, but I’m gonna run a store during the week so I’ll have something to do.”
Cashion said, “A godly wife and a godly husband raised two godly sons … Her labors will follow her.”
“You Baptists don’t get upset,” Cashion said before he related that Guynelle said she sometimes danced in front of her TV while Christian music played.
Dr. Drew Hines, Washington Baptist’s pastor came to WBC 19 years ago. He recalled that Guynelle and her GAs (Girls in Action) “put on a dinner for us.” He said she sometimes pulled small children through the church building in a little wagon, stopping to explain things about church life. She “loved missions” and had served as WMU (Woman's Missionary Union) director and GA director.
Dr. Hines said Guynelle had a “sweet smile … a beautiful smile that begins in the heart and soul and ends up on the face.” He said Earl referred to her as “my dear wife” and had said, “If it hadn’t have been for Guynelle, I don’t know where I’d be today.”
“And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Revelation 14:13).
