Mary F. Bates

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Mary Frances Sears Bates, 95, of Alvaton died at 9:40 p.m. Oct. 11, 2008, at a Bowling Green nursing home.

The Scottsville native was born Oct. 5, 1913. She was a librarian at Western Kentucky University and a homemaker. She was a lifelong Baptist and did a lot of teaching and church work. She was past president of the Greenwood Homemakers Club and was very active in P.T.A. She was always ready to help anyone in her community. She loved to sing in church and at funerals. She loved hay rides and was one of the great Alvaton cooks. She was a daughter of the late John Robert Sears and Lily Reed Hood Sears and the wife of the late James Francis Bates.

Funeral is at 1 p.m. Thursday at J.C. Kirby & Son Funeral Home, Broadway Avenue chapel, with burial in Fairview Cemetery beside her husband. Visitation is from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday and begins at 10 a.m. Thursday at the funeral home.

Online condolences may be made at www.jckirbyandson.com.

Survivors include a daughter, Claudia Sue Buntin and her husband, Charles, of Mayfield; a son, Jack Sears Bates and his wife, Paula, of Alvaton; two granddaughters, Torri Hepner and Sadie Bates; three grandsons, Patrick Thor Bates, Christopher Frank Buntin and Joel Thomas Buntin; and five great-grandchildren.