Hatcher & Saddler Funeral Home

Mary Lois Hughes

September 2, 1943          ~          July 26, 2024

Mary Lois (Baldock) Hughes

As the life of a flower, such was the life of Mary Lois Baldock Hughes, who passed from this life on July 26, 2024, in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Born September 2, 1943, in Glasgow, Barren County, Kentucky, she was the daughter of Marvin G Baldock (1909-1991) and Ona Christine Brown (1911-1986). Her parents and older sister, Edna Louise Baldock (1941-1986), preceded her in death.

Mary Lois spent her early years in the little community of Nobob, between Glasgow and Tompkinsville. Much of her early adult life was spent in Glasgow, where she was a member of the South Green Street Church of Christ. In school, her favorite classes were traditional housekeeping, which led to a lifetime of sewing clothes, quilting, needlepoint, crocheting, knitting, scrap-booking, and card making. She made the best chocolate pies, not some pudding pie, but real ones made from Hershey’s cocoa.

While attending Glasgow High School in 1959, she met fellow student William Edward Hughes. They started dating the following school year while Eddie attended Bowling Green University. The two were united in holy wedlock on June 17, 1961. After graduation, the young couple moved back to Glasgow. Soon, their family grew with the births of Lorie Ann in 1965 and, two years later, William Russell.

In 1974, the family moved to Campbellsville, where they attended Spurlington Road Church of Christ. She functioned as the church secretary for eighteen years. She and Eddie also took care of the building. They worked tirelessly with the youth, promoting Youth In Action, a church-wide program focused on building young people for Christ. The whole family looked forward to their trips to these youth events every year. In the early days, they would take their pop-up camper to rallies from Nashville to Okolona, to Richmond, and to Larue County. The girls slept in the camper, and the boys in the van. Some of their favorite speakers and songleaders were Mike Tanaro, Joe Beam, Walt Leaver, and Andy Baker.

In 1992, the Hughes moved back to Bowling Green, where they became members at Lehman Avenue Church of Christ. Once again, she taught Sunday School, and they were active with the college-age kids. She was the church secretary for Jack Ray, David Hamilton, and Paul Hodges for years. 

Mary Lois had a great passion for all things history. She and Eddie had roots in this country from the earliest days of its existence, some of whom served in the Civil War and Revolutionary War. Even more remarkable was her love for her spiritual history. In her maternal heritage was one who was baptized in the early 1800s by Elder John Mulkey, the great Restoration Movement preacher from Monroe County, Kentucky. 

Potentially, one of Mary Lois Hughes’ most extraordinary contributions came through a ten-year effort to preserve a most significant part of the history of Churches of Christ in the last two centuries. In 1996, Jack Ray, also a great lover of church history, organized a plan with some senior saints at Lehman Ave. to produce a database of all the deaths reported in the brotherhood paper, Gospel Advocate. This journal began in 1855 and, other than a few years during the Civil War, ran continuously until 2020. For several months, the church group went page by page, issue by issue, and year by year, writing down each recorded death. When the index was completed, Lipscomb University added it to its website. Soon, the church office at Lehman began receiving calls from genealogists asking Mary Lois if she would look up the entry and make the entire obituary available to them. She then determined to go back through and transcribe every obituary into one document. For the next ten years, she painstakingly went through every issue of the Gospel Advocate and transcribed each obituary. Her reading led to further research, where she and Eddie traveled to different locations just to find more information on the people she was writing about. In the end, she constructed a document of over 3000 pages. In 2006, this writer was preaching at the Buford Church of Christ, Georgia, where their son Russ served as a deacon. Through our meeting and growing friendship, I received this precious document and was given the rights to publish it on my website, TheRestorationMovement.com. Mary Lois Hughes’ gift to the world will continue to be a blessing for many years to come.

Surviving this gracious Christian lady is her husband, Eddie. For a couple that seemed inseparable, where you saw one, close by was the other; for 63 blessed years, they illustrated God’s plan for marriage and parenthood to all who knew them. 

She is also survived by her brother, Larry “Butch” Marvin Baldock of Glasgow.

Lorie Ann & Danny Newcomb of Bowling Green, Kentucky

Russ & Lisa Hughes of Hoschton, Georgia

Grandchildren: Nicholas & Maurisa Hughes and great-granddaughter Anna Jane of Cabot, Arkansas.

Hanna Hughes and Maliry Hughes of Hoschton, Georgia

Her wishes were that donations should be made to Foundation Christian Academy or Big Reedy Church camp instead of flowers.

A celebration of life will be held at Lehman Avenue Church of Christ, Bowling Green, KY, Thursday, August 1st from 4 to 7 PM. Funeral services will be held at 2:00 PM Friday, August 2^nd, 2024 at Hatcher & Saddler Funeral Home in Glasgow, KY, with visitation beginning at 11:00 AM Friday. Interment will be at Poplar Log Cemetery.