Mrs. Betty Jeanne Snyder Mills, 87, passed away peacefully in her sleep on Saturday, October 22, 2022, at Beebe Retirement Center in Beebe, Arkansas. Visitation will be 10:00 A.M. Saturday October 29 followed by the memorial service at 12:00 P.M. at Porter Funeral Home with Rev. Mike Childs officiating. Interment will be in Memorial Park Cemetery.
Betty was born December 13, 1934, in Towanda, Illinois where she grew up on a farm with 11 brothers and sisters. She attended Lincoln Bible College in Lincoln, IL for a short time until she married the love of her life on a cold December day in 1953. While living in Illinois Betty was a homemaker and spent many hours volunteering with church youth groups and the Boy Scouts of America until relocating to Mississippi in the early 1980s. She served tirelessly alongside her husband Rev. William (Bill) G. Mills in many Methodist churches over the years. She spent her final years living in Beebe, AR happily surrounded by family.
Betty loved the Lord and was a devoted Christian. Her Bible was worn, with notes in the margins and verses underlined. She always had a prayer list and would faithfully pray daily as she did her morning devotion; only after she finished would she fix herself a cup of coffee. Her final church home was First Methodist Church in Louisville, MS where she was an active member serving in multiple capacities including singing in the choir, treasurer of her Sunday School class, working in the church kitchen preparing meals, and baking bread for Communion. She supported missions both foreign and local, assisted in preparing relief buckets after Hurricane Katrina, and made many a caramel cake or Italian cream cake or her famous “Betty Bread” for bazaars and bake sales.
She was preceded in death by her husband of 53 years, Rev. William G. (Bill) Mills; daughter, Lisa Mills; son, Scott Mills; parents, Charles Snyder and Kathryn Bale Snyder; siblings Stanley, Donald, Audrey, Charles, Patricia, John, and Larry and her puppy dog and faithful companion Murphy.
She is survived by daughter, Bonnie (Tim) Tippey of Stanford, IL; son, Dave (Laurel) Mills of Beebe, AR; five granddaughters, Heather (Mike) Shriver of Ft. Meyers, Florida; Fran Watts of Lonoke, AR; Amanda (David) Hines of Cabot, AR; Alexandria and Indya Mills, both of Booneville, MS; and 13 great-grandchildren; Evyn, Sylas, Beccan, Ayva, Ezra, Sadie, Oliver, Jovie, Noah, Stephy, Will, Ivy-Rose, and Taddy; siblings Robert, Dorma, Sharon, and Sterling.
