The funeral service of Bernice Chapman Mitchell, will be conducted Saturday, November 6, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, 9925 Stage Coach Road, Baconton. Reverend James Edwards will officiate. Interment will follow in the church cemetery.

Honorary Pallbearers will be Deacons of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church.

Active Pallbearers will be Perry Bennett, Obadiah Dukes, Morris Hayes, Darryl Jackson, Lewis Moore, Jr., Carlton Robinson, Jr.

Mrs. Bernice C. Mitchell was born on November 1, 1929, in Mitchell County, Georgia to the late Reverend Henry W. Chapman, Sr. and Mary M. Chapman.

She confessed Christ at an early age and later united with New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, in Baconton, Georgia where she served on the Usher Board and supported all other church auxiliaries until her health failed.

She graduated from the Mitchell County Public School System and retired from HCA Palmyra Park Hospital in Albany, Georgia.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Hubert Mitchell; her son, Herbert J. Mitchell; her daughter, Valerie D. Mitchell; and her siblings, Thelma James, Frank Chapman, Henry W. Chapman, Jr., and Mary E. Adams.

She departed this life on Thursday, October 28, 2010 at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia.

She leaves to cherish her loving memories three daughters, Melva (Napoleon) Jackson of Baconton, Georgia, Melvis James of Baconton, Georgia, Jacquelyn (Kenneth) Carter of Greensboro, Alabama; two sons, Kenneth (Jastacia) Mitchell of Albany, Georgia and Calvin (Vina) Mitchell-Bennett of Leesburg, Georgia; three sisters-in-law, Ella Rose Chapman of Tampa, Florida, Marietta Chapman of Albany, Georgia, and Eva Dorothy Carter, of Albany, Georgia; twenty-three grandchildren; twenty-one great grandchildren; a host of nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.

You can only have one mother
Patient kind and true;
No other friend in all the world,
Will be the same to you.

When other friends forsake you,
To mother you will return,
For all her loving kindness,
She asking nothing in return.

As we look upon her picture,
Sweet memories we recall,
Of a face so full of sunshine,
And a smile for one and all.

Sweet Jesus, take this message,
To our dear mother up above;
Tell her how we miss her,
And give her all our love.