Charline Hutchins Rinehart

AIKEN, SC -- Charline Hutchins Rinehart, of Aiken, S.C., went to be with her Lord on Sunday, August 23, 2009, following a stroke on August 1, 2009. She would have been eighty four years old on Labor Day; she will labor no more. For forty years she was cared for and loved by her many friends from Levels Baptist Church and they were there with her during her transition to her glorious new life. The time was filled with many tears of “We’ll miss you, and we’ll see you later,” much laughter sharing stories of the antics of this spunky lady and a celebration of a life well spent. Charline Hutchins Rinehart was born September 7, 1925 in Summerville, Georgia, the fourth of eleven children, to Charley Wilmot Hutchins and Alice Lowe Hamby Hutchins. Her enormously strong work ethic was instilled in her at an early age, as she and her siblings and many others worked to keep the family farm running, particularly during the difficult days of the Depression. She told stories of picking cotton all day and piling it in the center of the living room of the big farm house built by her grandfather, in order to pick the cotton out of the thorny cotton bolls and the cotton seeds out of the cotton. She was an avid gardener, another skill she learned growing up on a working farm. For decades, each summer she had a large and fruitful vegetable garden with enough produce to supply all of her lucky neighbors and friends. Her yard and home were filled with a wide assortment of flowers and shrubs, ordered from numerous gardening and seed catalogs. She was a “worker bee;” if something needed to be done, she would be one of first to jump in and get it done, a superb representative of her generation, the Greatest Generation. Her greatest achievement, however, was having the love of so many people whose lives were touched and changed by her unselfish love and humble spirit. She lived her life simply by doing her best to represent her Lord; she took that calling very seriously, and fulfilled it joyfully. She was married to the late David T. McNair for twenty one years and to the late Thomas Rinehart for thirty-two years. She is survived by her two daughters Myra McNair and Geneal McNair, both of Atlanta, Georgia, and by siblings Wilburn Hutchins (Sarah), Eugene Hutchins (Wanda), Ruth Nuckolls (Milton), all of Summerville, Georgia, Ernie Hutchins of Marshall, Indiana, Barbara Alford of Union City, Georgia, and by the Golden Girls, her sisters-in-Christ, Mickie Jenkins, Kitty Black, Louella Queen and Karen Underwood. Visitation will be at Levels Baptist Church, 2456 Levels Church Road, Aiken, S.C. on Tuesday, August 25 from 6-8pm. The celebration of life service will be Wednesday, August 26 at Levels Baptist Church at 11am. Internment will be at Sunset Memory Gardens in Langley, S.C. Lunch will follow in the church family center. Mrs. Rinehart’s wishes are that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the building fund at Levels Baptist Church, Aiken, S.C. SHELLHOUSE – RIVERS FUNERAL HOME, 715 EAST PINE LOG RD., AIKEN, SC To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Charline Hutchins Rinehart, please visit our flower store.