Marjorie Adams: Paragon of public service

If ever there was a local public official deserving of sainthood, it is Grovetown's Marjorie Adams.

Mrs. Adams passed away Sunday at age 79. Rarely has there been a person who served her community and country with such grace and humility, using her modest means and gentle persuasion always to help others.

Many others. For more than a decade, Mrs. Adams saw to it that children in Grovetown and the surrounding area were able to attend a summer camp that provided good, wholesome fun along with a stay-in-school, anti-drug message.

This wasn't some government-funded program run by a politician, either. Mrs. Adams, though a public official, was anything but a politician. Her camp was funded through donations, many of them from the sweat of her brow: Mrs. Adams baked literally hundreds of cakes in her own kitchen each year, selling them to raise money for the kids.

A little more than a year ago, Mrs. Adams took on another mission: Collecting donations of money and goods to send care packages to troops serving in Iraq, and to wounded soldiers recuperating at Eisenhower Army Medical Center and at the Veterans Administration Hospital.

Like the effort to support her summer camp, she wasn't just a facilitator; she was an active participant, sending hundreds of packages of her own as part of the program. In everything she did, she always gave more than she ever asked of anyone else.

Mrs. Adams once talked about how much the care-package project meant to her, and how receiving a thank-you note from one of the soldiers in Sadr City, Iraq, brightened her day - even though it was from a man she'd never met. "I'm so happy to hear from him I don't know what to do," she said after getting the note just before Christmas of 2004. "A million dollars wouldn't have affected me the way this has."

And, just a few weeks ago, another service member sent a letter after hearing of her Dec. 8 stroke. "Receiving those packages made all the difference in the world for many of my soldiers," wrote Lt. Col. Glenn Kennedy, a Grovetown native stationed in Germany. "We cannot begin to thank her enough."

It was touching that Mrs. Adams wound up being treated at Eisenhower, among other places. One of the hospitals in which she sought to brighten the days of our wounded heroes helped care for Mrs. Adams as her final hours here arrived.

The passing of Marjorie Adams is hard for Grovetown, hard for Columbia County, hard for the entire community. And our nation, too, feels the loss of this caring, selfless soul.

Rest in peace, Mrs. Adams. The wings of an angel await you.