Mr. DON LOLLIS: Funeral on Sept. 21, 2026
The funeral for Mr. Don Lollis, 83, US Army veteran, former Faith Temple treasurer and board member, was held at 11 a.m. at Woods Mortuary, Greer, SC, on Mon., Sept. 21, 2026. Family, friends, and fellow Michelin retirees gathered. Faith Temple’s Pastor Raymond D. Burrows, Mr. Lollis’ pastor, read from Psalm 116: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”
Mr. Tim Langley, son of Don’s second wife, Mrs. Mary Lou Good Langley Lollis, and brother to Mr. Bobby Langley, said, “Don influenced my life over 30 years.” As the “yard boy” (lawn caretaker), Tim, who heard Don’s stories and laughter, knew Don was proud of his Michelin career and attributed his success to God and faithful tithing. Don told him, “Who would have thought a poor boy who grew up on a mill hill would end up with all these blessings? If you’d have told me that 50 years ago, I’d have told you you’as crazy.”
“Don didn’t just talk about his faith, he walked it,” Tim said. He thanked Mr. Carroll Peterson for being Don’s friend. “You see, Carroll arranged a blind date between Don and my mom.”
Don talked to Tim about Sarah, Don’s first wife. “He made her seem like family to me,” Tim said. Tim thanked Mr. Millard and Mrs. Thelma Robertson for helping Don through “one of the darkest seasons”—in 2017, the death of Mary. He thanked Donna Haynes, a nurse and Don’s granddaughter and namesake, who “spent a lifetime putting Don’s needs ahead of her own.” “I call you my step-sister, but in reality, you’re my hero… I love you,” Tim said. He thanked family members and caregivers. He said Don’s words to those attending would be, “I love you, and Jesus loves you… .”
Mrs. Ann Burrows and Mrs. Sandra Martin (pianist) sang “It Is Well with My Soul” and “Beulah Land.”
Pastor Burrows ranked “Mr. Lollis up there with the best of them. “He loved to laugh,” Pastor said. “He lived for the Lord, intensely.” Don and Pastor met in 1997; he performed Don’s marriage to Mary. Don purchased Mary a new car and built a house they moved into in 2002. Don once loaned Pastor $3,000 when Pastor had an unexpected need. Don’s “No problem” response came as he pulled an unsigned check from his billfold and wrote it. Pastor soon repaid the loan. Pastor wondered who may “pick up the torch” and live the Christian life as Don lived it as (in Don’s words) “a born-again Christian.” “He was in his own home when he transitioned to his heavenly home,” Pastor said.
Mrs. Burrows and Mrs. Martin sang, “The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power.”
Pastor prayed that if anyone in attendance was outside the fold of safety, that “God would shake them, rattle them, until there is a yieldedness… I believe that is the sentiment of Mr. Lollis. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
A private burial was slated for Greenwood, SC. ###
Obituary
Donald LaRue Lollis, 83, widower of Mary Lou Good Lollis, passed away September 17, 2026.
A native of Ware Shoals, a son of the late Babb and Nora Holder Lollis, he was a veteran of the United States Army; retired employee of Michelin North America, and member of Faith Temple.
Surviving are one daughter, Gail Allen Gambrell (John) of Williamston; two sons, Bobby Langley (Tanya) of Greenville, and Tim Langley (Kim) of Anderson; ten grandchildren, Donna Haynes (Brian), Michael Clark (Trish), Tracy Gillespie (Tim), Shane Gambrell, Jody Gambrell, Jessi Langley (Chris Ducloz), Chase Langley, Christian Langley, Hannah Langston (Preston), and Haleigh Langley (Zach Greene); and numerous great-grandchildren.
He was predeceased by his first wife, Sarah Pruitt Lollis, and three sisters, Varnell Lollis Whitten, Ann Lollis Collins and Faye Lollis.
A funeral service will be held 11:00 a.m. Monday, September 21, 2206, at The Wood Mortuary Chapel conducted by Rev. Raymond Burrows. A private burial will be held for the family.
A visitation will be held 9:45 a.m. until 10:45 a.m. Monday, September 21, 2026, at the mortuary.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Faith Temple, 5080 Sandy Flat Road, Taylors, SC 29687.
The family would like to thank Linda Gillespie, Angela Benjamin and Delma Vaughn for their loving care over the past several years.
October 8, 2020: as told by Don Lollis
Mr. Don Lollis serves as a Sunday school teacher and as secretary-treasurer at Faith Temple Church in Taylors, SC. He leads the Golden Age Club and oversees cemetery administration.
Don, the only boy and third child of his parents, Mr. Babb Lollis and Mrs. Nora Estelle Holder Lollis, grew up in Ware Shoals, SC. Of Don’s three sisters, one died at age five; the only living sister, Ms. Varnell Whitten, resides with her husband in Belton, SC.
Don’s dad and mother worked at the former Riegal Textile Corporation in Ware Shoals.
Someone said that without Riegal, “the only thing running in Ware Shoals would be the Saluda River.”
“Riegal had its own manufacturing plant,” Don says. “Cotton came in, and they made yarn, wove it into cloth, and bleached, dyed, and printed it.”
Sen. Nathaniel Barksdale Dial of Laurens County envisioned damming the Saluda River to power a cotton mill but ran out of funds before completing the power plant. Benjamin D. Riegel bought the project from Dial and founded both the Ware Shoals Manufacturing Company and the town of Ware Shoals in 1902. The power plant construction was completed in 1904 and a textile mill in 1906.
“Riegal first built a power plant in Ware Shoals in order to operate a textile mill,” Don says, adding that employees depended almost totally on Riegal. “The company later also maintained mill houses, a company store, drug store, soda fountain, shoe store, grocery store, clothes store, furniture store, funeral home, garage, cafe, barber shop, YMCA, theater, teenage canteen, showers, swimming pool, Texaco filling station, Ware Shoals Inn, Riegal baseball stadium, and a basketball court. Basically, we were slaves.”
Don’s grandmother, Lattie Mae Knight Lollis, was left with four children during the Depression when her husband forsook their marriage. Don’s father was a twin. His twin sneaked off by himself to the river and drowned at age nine.
“One day, my grandmother prayed so hard for her oldest child, John Wesley Lollis, that she began speaking in tongues,” Don says. “She didn’t know what that was, and she wanted to apologize to the Lord for doing that. But in reading the Bible, she began to realize what happened.”
She and six ladies visited Mr. Benjamin D. Riegal (who died in 1941), a New Yorker and owner of Riegal Textiles.
“He was down here for the summer,” Don says. “They asked for land for a church that is now Ware Shoals Pentecostal-Holiness Church.”
Ms. Lollis once fainted on her job while working at Riegal because she ate sparingly so that her children could eat better. Her supervisor learned why she fainted and secured a pay advance for her. She died at age 93 in 1963.
At age 28, Don’s dad married Nora Holder, seven years younger. They attended Main Street Church of God, but something discouraged him and he left church after a year or two of marriage. He backslid and started drinking. Growing up, Don was not taken to church by his parents. He and his sisters sometimes attended their grandma’s church.
“My dad was pretty bad to drink at home till I was 19,” Don says. “He’d go to the liquor store and get hard liquor.”
One Sunday morning, Don’s father came into Don’s room.
“What you doing in my room?” Don asked.
“I’m looking for a tie,” his dad said.
Some co-workers at Riegal had been asking Don’s dad to attend church and he decided to go. He was saved at Ware Shoals First Baptist Church. Don’s mother accepted Christ about two years later. Don’s father became a deacon and Sunday school teacher at that church.
Don quit school during ninth grade and worked as a brick mason’s helper. (He earned a GED at around age 40.)
He joined and served in the Army National Guard (a Signal Unit, 1960-1964).
“I went to the mill at 19 or so,” he says. “I worked at Riegal in the finishing department on a tentering machine.”
A tentering machine stretches cloth that’s been processed on a ‘napper’ machine. A napper lifts or raises fibers to give fabric a soft or suede appearance. Nappers create the fuzzy “nap” on the surface of flannel and other cloth.
“I did that for five and half years,” Don says.
He then worked for Monsanto Company Textiles Division for 10.5 years, processing cones of yarn to be made into rugs or carpet.
At age 25, while at Monsanto, he married Sara Pruitt, of Honea Path, who also worked at Monsanto. She brought with her a daughter, Gail, then 16 years old, from a previous marriage.
Don left Monsanto because they began “swing shift” (alternating day and night shifts) and hired at Michelin, a tire manufacturer.
“I worked 25 years and 20 days for Michelin,” Don says.
“We attended Sara’s parents’ country church, Jones Chapel Church of God of Prophecy,” Don continues.
Sara accepted Christ, and about two years later, after Don watched Christian TV one night, he got on his knees and accepted Christ at around 32 hears old, he says.
“The church we attended was pretty strong against divorce, so we began attending Main St. Church of God,” Don says. He became a Sunday school teacher and secretary-treasurer of that church for 12 years.
Don had worked 7-8 years at Michelin when his wife and her friend, Ms. Bessie Worrell, were killed in 1996 in an automobile accident.
“Sara’s daughter, Gail, was 25-28 years old then,” Don says. “I kept on going to church and serving the Lord.
At Michelin, Don worked on “curing presses” (1.5 years), then “made tires,” then applied for a job in a department that analyzed Michelin tires by taking them apart. (On Dec. 31, 2020, he will celebrate 17 years of being retired.)
“Brother Carroll Peterson came to work there about four years after I did,” Don says. “We would talk about the Lord. He and his sisters connected me with Ms. Mary Lou Langley.”
Don sent his phone number and a photo of himself to the late Mary Lou, who supervised the Winn-Dixie cafeteria. (Bobby and Tim are her sons. Her father had been a Baptist minister.)
Don and Mary Lou met first in-person at Olive Garden, began dating in March-June 1997, and married on Nov. 29, 1997, four years after her first husband died. Pastor Burrows performed the ceremony.
Don did not regularly attend Faith Temple until he married Mary Lou. He attended Ms. Connie Bishop’s class for a month or so. She became ill around Feb. 6, 1998, and Don taught the class. He became a deacon 1.5 years after marriage and sang in the choir. Ms. Mary Lou Lollis died on June 8, 2017.
“I enjoy teaching,” Don says. It’s harder for me to remember things like I used to, but I’ll keep on doing what I’m doing until the Lord comes or I go to the grave. And I’m very devoted to supporting the church in finances and missionaries.”
Brother Carroll Peterson, a Faith Temple deacon, says, “Don is a very likable and enjoyable person to know. He gets along well with others and is devoted to doing the Lord’s work. We worked together at Michelin Research for years. He’s like a brother to me. He has helped me in my walk with the Lord and has been someone I can trust in. I’ve been with him through the deaths of his first wife, his sister, his father, and Mary. He doesn’t like recognition, but he’s dedicated to his work at the church and is an inspiration to the church.”
The Raymond D. Burrows, Faith Temple Church’s pastor, says, “When the wedding of Mr. Lollis and Ms. Mary Lou was taking place, Mr. Lollis’ pastor from the Ware Shoals area said, ‘He is a good man.’ In the 23 years since that memorable day, I came to know the pastor’s remark was an understatement because Mr. Lollis is a great man, on many levels, through the enabling power of Christ.
“Regarding his virtues, he first loves God and is committed to the work of God and thereby lends his talents and abilities to reaching the world for Christ.
“Second, he loves his family and shows them full devotion. That love was particularly demonstrated in the care he provided Mrs. Mary Lou as she battled a horrific disease. He tirelessly served that dear lady and provided everything humanly possible for her needs.
“Mr. Lollis has and does serve with great distinction and is truly a great man of God.”
2024 07 06 -- Don Lollis talks about his grandmother.
It was not unusual, especially in the fall and summertime when I was 10 or 12 or a teenager in Ware Shoals, SC, to ride my bicycle by my grandmother’s house, and she’d be sitting on her porch, reading her Bible with her glasses on. She couldn’t see good, and she’d be out there in the sunlight where she could see her Bible better.
The Pentecostal church was next door to her, and she could walk there in a few minutes and be at the church. She was a tremendously dedicated Christian lady, and she’d tell us stories, occasionally, about some things that happened in her life. Our foundation, for sure and certain, from that time to this time, was Ms. Lida Lollis, my grandmother (Oct. 18, 1871 — Feb. 11, 1962). Down through the years, I’d hear different things about my grandmother, how impressed that people in the church were and even in the neighborhood.
I was grown and married, and my wife, Sarah, would accumulate stuff and decided one Saturday she’d have a yard sale. This guy that was reared next door to my grandmother, he and his wife came to see if Sarah had anything they wanted to buy. He and I sat on the front porch, and he started telling me, “Don, when I was just a kid and a teenager, we didn’t have air-conditioning back then. We just had a little old fan in the window. The side of the house I slept on was right next to where your grandmother lived, and I’ve laid there many a night and heard your grandmother praying and calling out people’s names. And I’d hear her call out my and my mom and dad’s names, asking the Lord to be a blessing to us and to help us.”
You know, back then, times was really hard for a lot of people. About all available worked on a farm and made a little bit of a living there, or you worked in a cotton mill, and I think back then it was as low as 50 cents an hour they were paying people. And her husband left. I think he was gone for years; he come back, stayed a few days, and was gone again — that would be my grandfather — and we never heard any more after that. In other words, he didn’t have the backbone or the will to stay with her and help the family. But my grandmother — buddy, she was there from the moment you were born till the time she passed away.
One other guy I attended church with down there, told me about my grandmother. He said, “Don, my mom would get sick, and she wouldn’t go to the doctor; that wouldn’t be the first thing she did. She’d give me some names and tell me to go around that little mill village and tell the ones she attended church with to remember her in prayer… Always, the first person she’d mention, every time, was your grandmother, Mrs. Lida Lollis.
Don’s Dad … as told by Don Lollis
My dad eventually became a born-again Christian, but instead of attending the Pentecostal church in Ware Shoals, SC, where my mom did, the people he worked with invited him to church, and he went to the First Baptist Church. His sister complained, saying, “He needs to where we go.”
My Pentecostal grandmother, Lida Lollis, said, “No. He needs to go where the Lord has sent him to. Just so he goes to church.” Dad had been an alcoholic, but he ends up at the First Baptist Church, a deacon and a Sunday School teacher down through the years.
When I was married and workin at Michelin, I’d go home, have supper, sit around a while, then I’d go out and walk a couple miles to get exercise. I was coming back in, and I looked across the street, and these two guys, my dad’s friends, were on the other side of the street, coming down through there. He had been their Sunday School teacher. They were walking along, talking. So they motioned for me to come over. So, I went over and said, “What’s going on?”
They had changed pastors at the First Baptist Church, and they didn’t care too much for the new preacher. I said, “What y’all need is Dan Compton back.” He was the pastor there and had moved on, and he was a really good man and a good minister. And you know what those two guys said? They said, “We need Babb Lollis back, too.” My dad. That’s how much love and respect they had for their friend who’d been an alcoholic.
The only thing on my dad’s mind had been going to the mill and working, going to the liquor store and drink to get drunk, go to bed at night, and then, get up the next morning and go back to work… We had very little. We lived off my mother’s little check she made by working in the textile mill. My dad would go with his check every Thursday to the liquor store and pay the liquor store off for the liquor that he had charged through the week, and what they handed him of what was left from that check was very little. So, basically, we lived off what my mother made.
Dad woke me up one Sunday morning in my bedroom. I raised up and said, “What are you doing in my room?” He said, “I’m looking for a tie.” I said, “For what? You gonna hang yourself with it?” He said, “Naw. I’m going to church. There’s about three friends that I work with up there in the mill, and they stay on me all the time about going with them to church.”
His mother lived right beside the Pentecostal church where she went. But he didn’t go there. He went to the First Baptist, where his friends went. Over a period of time, he become a Sunday School teacher; he become a deacon; and he was tremendously respected by those people. The only thing that bothered me about it was I wish he had done that when I was growing up because I would have done much better in life by having a good Christian father.
My dad became an example to us — me and two sisters. We became born-again Christians. My older sister Ann has passed away. Me and my sister, Varnell, are in church as often as we can be. And all of that come from my grandmother and her example to us all. ###
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