Vernice Maxine Lilly

Vernice Maxine Lilly

Vernice Maxine Cole Calfee Lilly, 84, of Beckley, left this life Wednesday, March 30, 2011. She died peacefully at Bowers Hospice House.
Maxine was born Nov. 23, 1926, in Pemberton, West Virginia, to Julia Elizabeth Young Baugess Cole and John Kelly Cole.
She had been a lifelong resident of Raleigh County, with the exception of the last six years which she spent receiving excellent care at Hilltop Nursing Center in Fayette County, following a stroke.
She was of the Christian faith and had been a member of Calloway Heights Baptist Church.
Vernice Maxine graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1944. Around that time, she and her identical twin sister, Bernice Rexine, often performed together on local live radio as the Cole Twins.
Maxine worked as a receptionist at Beckley Hospital before taking a job at Beckley Feed and Hardware. She served as the store’s secretary and bookkeeper for nearly four decades and was working there when she met her first husband, Hershal Robert “Bob” Calfee. The two married in 1948 and subsequently had three daughters. Bob passed away in 1975, and in 1987 Maxine married James E. Lilly of Elkins Street, Beckley. She enjoyed spending time with her family and working crossword puzzles.
Mrs. Lilly was preceded in death by her parents, Julia and John Cole; her first husband, Hershal Robert “Bob” Calfee; her second husband, James E. Lilly; her twin sister, Bernice Rexine Sisk; two brothers, John Seldon Cole and William Kelly Cole; three half-sisters, Ada Baugess Davidson, Daisy Baugess Tucker and Ethel Baugess Coleman; three half-brothers, Watha, Orville and Sam Baugess; a step-son, Hershal Robert Calfee Jr.; a daughter, Jo Ann Stanton; and a son-in-law, William David Stanton.
Left to cherish her memory are two daughters, Julia Robinson of Lebanon, Tenn., and Janet R. Warden and her husband, Homer, of Stanaford; seven grandchildren, Sarah Robinson, Jane Spruill and her husband, Rick, and Josh Robinson, all of Lebanon, Tenn., Audrey Stanton-Smith and her husband, Jarrod, of Beckley, Rebecca Mann and her husband, Geoff, of Richmond, Va., and Robert and Alan Warden, both of Beckley; seven great-grandchildren, Michael Eds, Will Spruill, Jon David Schwitzerlette, Graydon Smith, and Jackson, Josie and Gunner Mann; and several nieces and nephews.
Services will be 2:00 P.M. Friday, April 1, at Calfee Funeral Home, Beckley, with the Rev. Bill Parker officiating. Friends may call at the funeral home Thursday, from 6:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. Entombment will follow at Sunset Memorial Park. The family thanks the Bowers Hospice House and asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Hospice of Southern West Virginia P.O. Box 1472 Beckley, WV 25801
Online condolences may be left at www.calfeefh.com.
Arrangements by Calfee Funeral Home, Beckley.