Vernell Stevens

WARSAW — Mrs. Vernell Abernethy Stevens, the widow of Judge Henry L. Stevens III, died in Snow Hill, N.C. on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014 at the age of 84.

Services for Mrs. Stevens will be held at 3 p.m. at the Warsaw Presbyterian Church on Tuesday, Dec. 23, and will be followed by a visitation in the church's fellowship hall.

Mrs. Stevens, a native of Charlotte, N.C. was the daughter of the late George Robert Abernethy, Sr. and Grace Phillips Abernethy. After graduating from high school at Charlotte Central, she attended Mars Hill College and then Wake Forest.

Mrs. Stevens was a majorette at Wake Forest, and graduated magma cum laude a bachelor's degree in mathematics. While there, she met her future husband, Henry, who was attending Wake Forest Law School.

After graduation, Mrs. Stevens taught mathematics at Clinton High School in the mid-1950s before she married at Graves Memorial Presbyterian Church in Clinton on June 6, 1957. The couple lived in Warsaw, where Mrs. Stevens taught math at James Kenan High School into the mid 1960s before leaving her profession to raise the couple's two children, Mildred Beasley "Bea" Stevens Foster and Henry L. Stevens IV.

Twenty years after leaving the classroom, Mrs. Stevens returned to her love of education, teaching high school mathematics at Harrells Christian Academy in the late 1980s. She also served multiple terms on the Board of Trustee at James Sprunt Community College in Kenansville, N.C.

Mrs. Stevens was a devoted wife and mother, and will be remembered as a true "Southern Lady". She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Bea and Allen C. Foster II of Kinston, and three grandchildren, Christina Marie, Spencer and Holden; and her son and daughter-in-law, Judge Henry L. Stevens IV and Melissa Blizzard Stevens, and their children, Henry L. Stevens V, Savannah Kate Stevens, Alecia B. Cox, Paxton Blizzard and Alex Blizzard.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Warsaw Presbyterian Church at P.O. Box 863 in Warsaw, North Carolina 28398.

A service of Community Funeral Home of Warsaw.