Martha Rose Miller McKnight

Martha Rose Miller McKnight, our beloved wife, mother, and grandmother passed from this world and into God's great cosmos beyond the stars on Sunday, September 20, 2015. She was born on January 24, 1929, in Statesville, NC, to Florence Throneburg and Joseph Vernon Miller. She grew up in Davie County in the Pino community. Martha was baptized at the age of seven at Wesley Chapel Methodist Church. In 1946, she was chosen as the Most Representative Grange Girl in North Carolina, and was a seventh-degree member in the Grange. In 1954, Martha was baptized by immersion at First Baptist Church, and was an active member there for over fifty years. She taught in the Junior, Youth, and Adult departments, worked on various committees, and enjoyed playing in the handbell choir. Martha graduated from Farmington High School; she then attended the same college where her mother had graduated from in 1925, WCUNC (now UNCG), graduating in 1950. She taught in the Yadkin County school system for thirty-one years, serving at Yadkinville High School, Boonville High School, and Forbush High School. She was Chair of the Science Department for twenty years at Forbush High School, and she was chosen as Teacher of the Year there in 1982. She was a charter member of the Gamma Nu chapter of the Alpha Delta Kappa Education Sorority. She loved her family, her church, and the many students that she taught. She possessed a zest for life, with interests in people, music, movies, flowers, and reading. Her surviving husband, Felix, was the love of her life for over sixty-five years. She also had a special love for her grandsons, Sep and Taylor. To them, she was "Gammie." She is also survived by her son, Robert Nicholas McKnight, and his wife, Reverend Judith Steinman, of Lawrenceville, GA; her daughter, Sarah Felicia McKnight Briscoe, and her husband, Philip Briscoe VI, CAPT USN (RET), of Virginia Beach, VA; her beloved grandsons, Philip (Sep) Briscoe VII, and his wife, Katie Leigh Briscoe, of Virginia Beach, VA, and Robert Taylor Briscoe and his wife, Olivia Rose Briscoe of Woodbridge, VA; one brother, Dr. Bayne Miller, and his wife, Inez, of Mocksville, NC; and sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews, a special uncle and aunt, and treasured cousins. The interment ceremony will be at Yadkin Memorial Gardens on Shacktown Road at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 3, with the memorial service to follow at 11:00 a.m. at First Baptist Church Yadkinville. Reverend Dallas Prestwood and Reverend Ramona Prestwood will be officiating. There will be a luncheon reception afterwards in the church fellowship hall. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to First Baptist Church Yadkinville, P. O. Box 668, Yadkinville, NC, 27055, or to a charity of the donor's choice. The family sincerely appreciates the care and concern provided by her physicians, Dr. Susan Yuson, Dr. Denise Lauriente, and Dr. Robert Holmes, as well as the care and comfort provided by the staff of Care South (Lori Brandon, Marissa Perrin, Brenda Perrin, Jeannette Hill, and Veronica Sizemore) and Mountain Valley Hospice. Online condolences may be made at www.gentryfuneralservice.com. Gentry Family Funeral Service in Yadkinville is serving the McNight family.