Mr. Herbert O. Raines of Whiteville departed this life Wednesday, October 10, 2012 at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital. He was 86 years old.
A native of Whiteville, he was born August 16, 1926 to the late Clyde Horner and Mattie Sue Skinner Raines. On September 10, 1947 he married Pearl Bishop, who preceded him in death May 26, 2008 after 60 years of marriage. He served his country in the United States Army during World War II and earned the Purple Heart and other campaign medals. He worked for the Tennessee Department of Transportaion and then O’Neal Paving Company in Memphis before working for the United States Postal Service. He was presently a member of the Mt. Moriah Baptist Church but he had formerly been a member at Trinity Baptist Church in Bolivar, where he taught Sunday School for 35 years and served as a Deacon and Song Director.
Music was Mr. Raines’s life. He tuned pianos, was a fiddler and singer, was a member of the Jackson Plectral Society, played in the bluegrass group ‘Cypress Creek’, and performed for several years in Hardeman County’s ‘Hee Haw’, an annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. He was very charitable, playing music all over, including on the radio in California with Steve Burns. Mr. Raines was also a Mason.
Survivors include two daughters, Marsha Glover of Nashville and Melisa Raines of Nashville; a son, Marvin Raines of Whiteville; four grandchildren, Deanne Harper, Brian Raines, Jeremiah Raines and Patrick Glover; two stepgrandchildren, Mark Dellinger and Adam Williamson; and several great-grandchildren and step great-grandchildren.
