Pattie Jean Fleming Bohannon, 1931-2020

Pattie Jean Fleming Bohannon, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel among Southeast Asian Affinity Peoples in Guam, died Oct.15, 2020. She was 89.

Bohannon was born in 1931 in Bibb County, Alabama, to the late Judge Freeman and Lillie Ragland Murphy. She received the Bachelor of Arts from the University of Alabama, and the Master of Education from Livingston University (now University of West Alabama, Livingston) and studied at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Bohannon wrote when seeking missionary appointment that after trusting Jesus as her personal Savior as a child, that she began to feel God was calling her to special service. “I had attended Sunbeams and GAs [missions organizations for children] and thought at that time that God might be directing me to the mission field.”

While in college, she did mission work two summers in Illinois for the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board).

She taught for two years in Warrington, Fla., before attending seminary, where she met and married Binion Gerroid Fleming. When Bin served in the U.S. Army as chaplain for three years, the family spent part of that time in Germany. They then lived in several locations in the United States as he served as pastor of churches in Sweet Water, Alabama; Deer Lodge, Montana; Granger, Washington; Nanafalia and Thomasville, Alabama; and Jacksonville, Arkansas.

The Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) employed the Flemings in 1984 as missionaries to the Pacific island of Guam. They served there six years, living in Tamuning, and retired in 1992. Ben died in 1993 and Pat later married Kenneth Lewis Bohannon, former military and hospital chaplain, who died in 2009.

A funeral service for Bohannon was held Oct. 19, 2020.

Read an obituary here.