First Presbyterian Church Franklin celebrates the life and work of Miss Lena Reynolds.

Read In God's Hands - A Historical Fiction by Rebecca Wilhoite Weaver

Born March 5, 1901, Lena Reynolds was the daughter of Lena Rook and Hendley Stone Reynolds of Franklin, and grew up with seven brothers and sisters as well as five orphaned cousins. Her family joined the First Presbyterian Church of Franklin in 1911.

A 1918 graduate of Franklin High School, Lena prepared for missionary service at St. Luke’s Hospital Nursing School and later the Assembly Training School (now the Presbyterian School of Christian Education), in Richmond, Virginia.

She entered full-time mission work with the Presbyterian Church U.S. in 1927, stationed in Bulape, Belgian Congo (now Zaire) in Africa. Lena served as a missionary in Africa for 32 years, and continued to care for others as Supervisor of Nursing at Williamson County Hospital when she returned to Franklin in 1959.

Upon her death in 1985, Lena left an endowment to First Presbyterian Church, and her sister Mrs. J. B. Parks and the Rev. Dr. Tom Walker worked to establish the Lena Reynolds School of Mission in her memory.

“You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world…Let your light shine!” Matthew 5:13-16