09/12/2025
Tina Faye Young, 95 of Mize, MS transitioned to her heavenly home on Friday, September 12, 2025 in Lucedale, MS. She was born Thursday, May 15, 1930.
Visitation will be held on Monday, September 15, 2025 from 9:00 am until 11:00 am at Colonial Chapel Funeral Home of Magee, 302 Eighth Ave SW, Magee, MS. A Graveside service will follow at 11:30 am at Waco-Fairmount Cemetery in Mize, MS. Randy McCraw will officiate. Colonial Chapel Funeral Home of Magee is in charge of arrangements. 601-849-5031
Born at the beginning of the Great Depression, Tina learned the values of hard work and frugality, but she also learned about and developed an integral relationship with Jesus Christ. She was the 2nd of 6 siblings born to a share-cropper whose life depended on success of annual crops. Rarely was there a spare nickel for candy, toys, or entertainment. Toys were crafted at home from rocks, sticks, maypops, and pea hulls. The water park was the branch running through the woods in the back of the property or down at the nearest creek bank.
She dedicated her life to these values, nurturing children, and homemaking, in addition to being the primary breadwinner for her last 50 years of her independence. Rising before the sun, she cooked 2 meals every day during the week when she worked as a seamstress or cafeteria manager, and she cooked 3 meals on weekends and holidays. Leftovers were consumed, but something new was always added. Never making as much as $9/hr, she retired at age 65 just before the passing of her husband of 49 years, H.D. Young 3 years later. She preached conservation of everything and waste of nothing. She grew by herself what we ate from 1977 until the loss of her independence in 2018. What we didn't grow, she purchased with her own money. She made some clothing and provided haircuts to save funds.
For entertainment, she would sew clothing and quilts, plus crochet house slippers, coasters, pillow cases, throws, caps, shawls, etc. In the 1980s, she took classes and became an accomplished cake decorator and baker. Every meal would have 3 vegetables, a meat, and dessert, unless something was substituted for a vegetable like potato salad. Baked sweet potatoes were a delicacy in the fall. Her specialty was desserts. Pecan pie, tea cakes, egg custard pie, strawberry cake and pie, blackberry cobbler and pie, wild huckleberry pie, blueberry muffins and pies, home grown apple, peach, and fig tarts, chocolate pie, coconut cake and pie, seasonal pumpkin bread, sweet potato loaf (pawn), no-bake fruitcake, Martha Washingtons, divinity, pecan and walnut fudge, chess pie, dewberry pie and cobbler, cherry pie, chocolate cake, sour cream cake, bread pudding, yellow marble cake, banana pudding, and many other cakes, pies, and sweets.
She canned fruits and vegetables annually, and made dozens of jams, jellies, and preserves. Growing season began in February with English peas, and concluded in October with the sweet potato harvest. Peanuts were used for snacks in both parched and boiled forms. Cucumbers, peas, butterbeans, corn, lettuce, cabbage, turnips, collards, mustard, rutabagas, beets, watermelons, cantaloupes, strawberries, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, squash, okra, string beans, and English peas, among others, were grown annually. She grew, nurtured, and harvested them all by herself to feed the family.
After marrying in 1949, she moved with her husband to Laurel, Hattiesburg, and then to Washington D.C., Norfolk, VA, Las Cruces, NM, Pensacola, FL, and Chicago, IL before moving back to Mize, MS when he retired from the U.S. Navy in 1966. After the graduation of her daughter, Linda Carol, Tina became a grandmother on July 4, 1972. By January, 1973, Tina had taken in her grandson, Raymond (Ray) Humphries, II due to hardships on her daughter due to thyroid cancer and marital separation leading to divorce. It was agreed that, as grandparents, she and H.D. Young were better equipped to provide the newborn with his best chance of success. In 1979, she and her husband adopted the grandchild as Raymond Young. She began work in the Mize school cafeteria in 1975 prior to Raymond's entry into first grade in 1978, where she remained until 5 years after his graduation from high school when her 20th year in the public school system ended in retirement in May, 1995 just prior to the birth of her first grandchild, Deidre Young (Hammer).
In retirement, she babysat her granddaughter and continued to grow crops to sustain herself and all her loved ones and friends that wanted to share her abundance. She supported local and state law enforcement, the Red Cross, and the March of Dimes charities. She never took any chronic medications. At age 85, she was found atop a 20-foot magnolia tree with a bow saw cutting it down in sections to prevent home damage during a severe wind storm. At age 86, she was found on her pitched rooftop with a bucket of tar and a paintbrush repairing leaks around her chimney. At age 88, she was diagnosed with vascular dementia due to micro-vessel damage during spikes of blood pressure when she became upset.
She endured the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, Hurricane Camille and Hurricane Katrina (among others), the 1970s energy crisis, extreme poverty, various skin cancers, substance abuse by close family, and the deaths of most of her close relatives. Through all this, she could be found humming, whistling, or singing in her yard, garden, or kitchen on any given day, with the day always concluding with a prayer of thanksgiving, a request for forgiveness of shortcomings, and a request for guidance to avoid anything unpleasing in the sight of God.
She never skipped an opportunity to share the Gospel with those she loved - both family and friends. She kept every Commandment given and consulted God in prayer before making major decisions. She reported having an actual visit from Christ, himself, during a dark time necessitating constant and repeated prayers, some 30 years before her dementia diagnosis. She had been a member of both Harmony Baptist Church and First Baptist Church of Mize.
Her favorite music was Gospel, Southern Gospel, Country-Western, and Elvis Presley. Her favorite television shows were: Dallas, Guiding Light, Walton's Mountain, Little House on the Prairie, Dr. Quin: Medicine Woman, Golden Girls, Wheel of Fortune, Hee-Haw, and Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Virginian, and Daniel Boone. She took great pride in seeing her daughter graduate with a Master's Degree in Education Administration from the University of Southern Mississippi, her adopted son from the University of Mississippi with a Doctorate of Pharmacy Practice, and her granddaughter from the Meridian Community College Dental Hygienist program with an Associate's Degree. None of this would not have been possible without her love and support through the process.
She was always thankful for what she had and did not covet the wealth of others. She found the greatest pleasure in the simplest things in life, including taking care of her family. What was mundane to others brought her joy. Even after placement in Sparrow Hills Personal Care Home in Lucedale, MS in August, 2019, she could be found caring for her debilitated roommates, helping staff with kitchen duties, and reading her Bible. She often remembered close family, and brought joy to each major holiday celebration when brought home to attend. Every staff member and regular family visitor of the facility offered testimony how her love and caring nature endeared her to them daily. She became a legend in the facility and loved to laugh, sing, dance, and help out when she could. She will be missed by everyone who knew her, and she will remain in the memory of each one who encountered her since arrival at Sparrow Hills. We celebrate her life as we give thanks for having known her. We give thanks for her help and love through almost 95 years and 4 months. She will be missed immensely.
She was preceded in death by husband, Hurshall Dentson Young; father, John Luther McCraw; mother, Ethel Buckley McCraw; brother, Randall McCraw; sisters, Janetta Somers, Elaine Harrell and Barbara White.
She is survived by her son, Raymond Lee Young (Michelle); daughter, Linda Carol Dixon (Jim); brother, William "Whimp" McCraw; grandchild, Diana Bell; great grandchildren, Deidre Hammer (Trent), Hannah Grindling (Josh), Megan Salas (Marcus), Mary Irwin, Madelyn VonRader (Brandon), Levi Hancock; great-great grandchild, Caroline Hammer; and a host of nieces, nephews, and other family.
Pallbearers will be Marcus Salas, Wade McCraw, Josh McKinley, Shane Little, Trent Hammer, and James Ware
An online guestbook may be signed at www.colonialchapelmageemendenhall.com
