Loreta Shells

Posted: Friday, November 23, 2012 4:00 pm

The Messenger, November 23, 2012
Completed arrangements are being announced for Loreta (Fair) Robinson Shells, 69, of Tupelo, Miss., formerly of Union City, who died Nov. 18, 2012, at North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo.
Services were aset for 1 p.m. today at Inspirational Baptist Church in Mississippi, with local services and interment planned later. Friends may call from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Monday at Anointed Church of the Living God in Union City, with the service to follow there. Apostle Barbara Bolden will officiate and interment will be in East View Cemetery afterwards.
Pallbearers will be Ardell Maddox, James Marshall, Sidney Pirtle Sr., Antwon Bishop, Keith Reed and Kevin Horton.
Honorary pallbearers will be Brent Barnett, Brandon Marshall, Fred Pirtle and Darwin Windham. Flower bearers will be friends and family.
N.L. Jones & Son Funeral Directors in Mississippi is in charge of all arrangements.
Mrs. Shells was born Dec. 25, 1942, in Saltillo, Miss., daughter of the late Sank George and Fannie Mae Fair. She was a member of Poplar CME Church in Saltillo, where she attended until her health failed. She attended Poplar School in Saltillo.
Mrs. Shells was a very loving wife, sister, mother, grandmother, aunt and friend. She was a talented person, an immaculate housekeeper and a great cook, decorator and seamstress. She enjoyed fishing, gardening and listening to her favorite gospel group, Lee Williams and the Spiritual QCs. She had a way of making people laugh, and she had special names for all her family and friends. Some names people liked and some, they didn’t.
She was united in holy matrimony to Calvin Shells Jr., who survives.
She is also survived by four sons and three daughters-in-law, Lee and Virginia Hill of Blue Springs, Miss., the Rev. Bobby and Mary Lockridge and Dean Lockridge, all of Union City, and Kelvin and Lashunda Fair of Tupelo; four daughters and two sons-in-law, Annie Kathryn and Kenneth Shells of Tupelo, Teresa A. Lockridge of Nashville and Aretha A. Lockridge and Hope and Scott Huff, all of Union City; her stepdaughter and son-in-law, Virginia and Singh Setia of Houston; her special daughter, Teresha Harris of Tupelo; 38 grandchildren; 26 great-grandchildren; four great-great-grandchildren; her sister and brother-in-law, Kathryn and Roosevelt Cobb Jr. of Tupelo; her brother, Bobby Fair of Union City; three brothers-in-law and their wives, James and Patricia Shells of Saltillo, James Armstrong of Blue Springs, Miss., and Joseph and Jennifer Shells of Nashville; five sisters-in-law and the husband of one of them, Sarah Fair, Alice Shells and Gussie Fair, all of Tupelo, Merlyen Shells of St. Louis and Janice and Donnie Babbit of Shannon, Miss., and several nieces, nephews and other relatives and friends.
She was also preceded in death by two sons, Billy Joe Lockridge and Joe La Roy Lockridge; four brothers, Odell Collier, William Fair, Johnny Fair and George Fair Jr.; and four sisters, Dorothy Fair, Fannie Lee Gaston, Louise Young and Carrie Mae Armstrong.