A Memorial Service will be held Saturday, September 17, at 11:00 am with visitation from 10:00 am until the time of service.
Ms. Betty McMullen Harrington, 81, of Brookhaven, MS passed away peacefully on August 18, 2022, after several years of struggling with symptoms from dementia.
Betty Marie McMullen was born on April 25, 1941, in Brookhaven and lived much of her life here. Her family settled into a comfortable home in Brookhaven at the start of the 1940’s and the family kept the beloved home for nearly eighty years. Betty is now the last of the McMullen family to have recently lived in Brookhaven.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Carolyn Jeannette Jackson McMullen, William Lucas McMullen, and Ann Allred McMullen; her husband, James P. Harrington, Jr., her daughter, Rebekah Harrigill Barrett; her brother; Bobby G. Allred; and her great-nephew, Beauregard Jackson “Beau” Branyan. Survivors include her grandson, Cody Bruce Barrett, Jr.; her siblings, Claudia McMullen Burnett, Sylvia Allred Adamson, William L. McMullen, Jr., and G. Wayne Allred and his wife, Sylvia Smith Allred; and sixteen nieces and nephews; sixteen great-nieces and great-nephews; and eight great-great-nieces and great-great-nephews.
After graduating from Brookhaven High School, Betty attended Agnes Scott College and graduated from Millsaps College. She soon got married and moved with her spouse several times before settling in Jackson, MS, where her daughter, Rebekah, was born in 1970. She began a very accomplished career with South Central Bell and AT&T, after having helped to plan their merger.
Most of Betty’s professional career was spent advancing through progressively more responsible positions at South Central Bell and AT&T until reaching a position of Group Manager over hundreds of staff. She was responsible for developing and executing business and personal policies. But her heart most enjoyed the staff training, mentoring, and coaching activities that were parts of her responsibilities. She won numerous recognitions and awards for individual performance and excellence, as well as a Boss of the Year commendation. She concluded a very accomplished professional life when she retired to Brookhaven.
Upon arriving in Brookhaven, she was featured in the local paper’s “Know Your Neighbor” section. Its question-and-answer format revealed some aspects of Betty's true self. For her favorite sports team, she listed SEC football teams – not one team, but all of them were her favorite. For her favorite food, she answered boiled peanuts. For favorite music, gospel. If she had a million dollars, she’d use it to support the Lord’s ministries. For favorite hobbies, she listed computer graphics design and layout. This last favorite would allow her computer skills to be applied later in many of the ministries in which she was involved. Also, she used these skills to prepare many different family gifts of booklets, newsletters, etc.
Betty shared a full life with her daughter, family, and in various community activities after returning to Brookhaven. She felt in her soul the need to return to Brookhaven to allow more devotion to her daughter, Rebekah, and to help her nurture Cody with a loving and understanding ministry. For many alternating years, she would host a festive and lively family Thanksgiving gatherings, for her ever-growing extended family at her home in Brookhaven. Boiled peanuts, usually provided by Uncle Bobby, were eaten by members of the family before, during, and after the traditional Thanksgiving meal. The peanuts also went quite well with the Thanksgiving Day football games.
With retirement, she used her talents to engage in many volunteer activities, which generally were aligned with manifestations of her devout faith. While working with Truelight Ministries in Georgia, she developed and delivered a biblically-based curriculum on “Personal and Professional Growth Seminar” to nurture individuals in identifying and realizing their lifetime goals and objectives.
Betty’s professional experiences came in handy when she volunteered to become the parliamentarian of the Willing Hearts Circle. These volunteers assisted the Brookhaven King’s Daughters Hospital patients, staff, and community in a multitude of small-and-large ways, as well as to spiritually ministering among themselves.
Betty was a founding Board Member of About the Master's Business Ministry and volunteered at The Yard Sale Place for many years to help support those in need. She was actively involved and instrumental in organizing city-wide prayer groups, including the Brookhaven Prayer Partnership. This group offered prayers for families, churches, governments, education, and other community institutions and individuals.
Betty prepared a Bible study course titled “Unique by Design” to help individuals with self-reflection and knowledge for better contributing to the Lord’s mission. It offered helpful guidance to individuals who might be trying to understand their place on earth. She used these same lessons herself to help coordinate her own life and spiritual ministries. Coordination was also a theme in Betty’s attention to her attire. During the recent pandemic quarantines, even though she could go nowhere other than the assisted living facility, Betty continued to exhibit a sense of style by taking care with her appearance – no one was as coordinated as Betty with her clothes, accessories, and makeup.
Betty was enthusiastic about her involvement with Mission Mississippi of Brookhaven, where she could use her natural talents and learned skills to support a worthy cause and ministry. She worked with many other of her friends who were similarly inspired by the vision of the group, which was to work for unity among races and churches to increase the Gospel message throughout Mississippi in better understanding the message of Christ.
Betty was a longtime member of the Southway Baptist Church in Brookhaven, which she loved for how it worshipped and praised the Lord. She even moved to a house just across the street from its location so that she could more easily participate in its every function. She saw this as another way of coordinating her life and spiritual ministries. Betty was also a regular at the non‑denominational meetings of the Tuesday Morning Bible Study group at the Methodist Church.
As the disease that crippled Betty’s ability to communicate grew more disruptive in her life, she began to understand that she was slowly losing her own capabilities to do the things that she had always loved to do for the Lord’s purposes. She was living with the knowledge of what was happening to her. She had been so generous, accomplished, and caring with her time, energy, and talents. She had frustrations with these circumstances of her disease and prayed intensely about it. Many of her friends from different parts of her life who knew her before her disease gave her understanding with the knowledge of what Betty had been in her past, and they helped her as they could in her present. Her doctors extended extra effort in her care; banking staff provided her extra considerate and patience; caretakers attempted to fulfill her every need, even singing soothing gospels to help her feel at peace; her friends extended compassion and companionship, while not knowing if she knew who they were or what they did for her; and her family pitched in to make her as comfortable as possible.
Betty will be greatly missed but we have the assurance that she is at peace in the presence of her Precious Savior Jesus and that we will join with her again one day.
If you would like to honor Betty’s life, please consider donating to one of the charities included in the above remembrance, or give to one of your own choices, in her name.
The family thanks you for your prayers and thoughts and your important friendship and companionship to Betty. Please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers.
