Mary Enid Burnett Small

Mary Enid Burnett Small, 98, of Lenoir, North Carolina, passed away on September 11, 2026.

Mary was born May 5, 1928, in Henry County, Virginia. She graduated from Westhampton College and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and later earned a postgraduate master’s degree in education.

On May 19, 1951, Mary married Tom G. Small. Together, they devoted much of their lives to Christian missionary service. In 1954, Mary and Tom became Southern Baptist missionaries, serving under the Foreign Mission Board in Central Africa and later throughout Southern and Eastern Africa.

Their missionary service began at Sanyati Baptist School and Hospital in 1955. In 1959, Mary and Tom Small, along with Evelyn and Zeb Moss, became the first Southern Baptist missionaries to open mission work in what was then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia.

During her years of service, Mary became the first administrator of the Bible Way Correspondence School and taught at the Baptist Seminary in Lusaka, Zambia. Her responsibilities grew throughout her missionary career, and she ultimately served as an area missionary for Southern and Eastern Africa.

After nearly four decades devoted to missionary work overseas, Mary and Tom permanently retired from the foreign mission field and settled in Lenoir, North Carolina, in 1992. Mary continued her life of faith and service through many years at Buffalo Cove Baptist Church and, in more recent years, at First Baptist Church of Hudson.

Mary was preceded in death by her husband, Tom G. Small, who passed away October 17, 2001, and their daughter, Esther Small, born July 23, 1952, who passed away February 4, 2018.

She is survived by her two sons and their families: Tom G. Small Jr. and his wife, Kay, of Richmond, Virginia, and their sons, Tom G. Small III and his wife, Bettie, of Richmond, Virginia, and David T. Small of Fayetteville, North Carolina; and Roy W. Small and his wife, Cheri, of Hutchinson, Minnesota, and their daughter, Kara L. Small and Simon of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Mary is also survived by her great-grandsons, Tom G. Small IV (“Deskin”) and Tobias B. Small, sons of Tom and Bettie.

For all the places Mary traveled and the many people she served throughout her life, she never lost sight of the importance of making one person feel remembered. She rarely forgot a birthday or a happy occasion and took special care in choosing and sending just the right card to mark the celebrations in the lives of those she loved.

Mary’s faith was not simply part of her life; it guided the course of it. From the mission field in Africa to her church and family in North Carolina, she spent her life in service to the faith she held deeply. Near the end of her life, she expressed that faith as simply as she had lived it. Her final words were, “I am going home to be with my Father.”