WADESBORO

Zella Welch Bennett Ingram died Jan. 7, 2009 at Anson Community Hospital.

Funeral services were held Jan. 11, 2009 at 2 p.m. at Kesler Chapel AME Zion Church with the Rev. Murray Edwards officiating. Interment followed at Westview Memorial Park.

She was born to the late Joseph B. Bennett and Delphia Flowers Bennett Sept. 21, 1032. She was the seventh of ten siblings.

She accepted Christ at an early age and joined Gatewood Station AME Zion Church.

She attended the public schools and graduated from Anson County Training School. She was wed to the late Horace Ingram for 66 years and bore him 7 children, two sons and five daughters.

The couple moved to Philadelphia where she worked at the Third Federal Savings Bank. She joined Northeast Baptist Church of Philadelphia.

They relocated to Wadesboro in 1987 and she joined Kesler Chapel AME Zion Church. There, she was president and on the stewardess board, the deaconess board, the missionary society, choir member, church school, prayer band, Relay For Life, Christian education department and class leader.

In 1999, she was named "Woman of the Year" by Kesler. She was a member of the VFW Ladies Auxiliary #10403.

Ingram was a certified nursing assistant with St. Joseph Home Health Agency until retirement in 2006.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Horace Ingram; six siblings, Walter Donnell Bennett, John Dexter Bennett, Ola Beatrice McCray, Joleitha B. Jones and Mary F. Hairston.

She is survived by her two sons, Joseph (Betty) H. Ingram of Philadelphia and Vernon (Joyce) Dexter Ingram of Brookeville, Md.; five daughters, Saundra Bailey of Philadelphia, Penn., Yvonne (Raymond) Rideout of Wilmington, Del., Constance Ingram and Rozella Martin of Philadelphia, Penn. and Cheryl (Tony) Parker of Pensacola, Fla.; 20 grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren; two sisters, Marva Saunders of Charlotte and the Rev. Jeannett Monroe of Burnsville; two sisters-in-law, Anelena Bennett of Washington, D.C. and Frances Bennett of Orlando, Fla.; two brothers, Charles Bennett of Manassas, Va. and Rufus Bennett of Orlando, Fla.; one brother-in-law, Percy Monroe of Burnsville; and a host of other relatives and friends.

The arrangements are in the care of Smith's Funeral Directors.