Ada Kay Bradley Paynter departed this life on November 19, 2017, from complications of emphysema. She was born March 6, 1943, in Greenwood and grew up in Inverness. Her parents were the late Marian Cohn Bradley and John R. Bradley. She graduated from Inverness High School where she was a varsity tennis player and attended Stephens College in Missouri, then an all-girls school. A thirty-five year Dallas resident, she lived in Abilene, Texas, for twenty years where she was an active member of her Episcopal congregation along with many other civic causes and social life. Ed Paynter, her former husband, of Abilene, predeceased her. She is also predeceased by special friend, Darwin Rigsby.
She is survived by her son John Bradley Paynter of Dallas; her sister Carolyn Bradley Stewart (Ross, predeceased) of Dallas and her brother John Robin Bradley, Jr. (Laura) of Oxford. She also leaves three loving nieces of Dallas: Allyson Kay Stewart Toler (Phil), Jennie Lynn Stewart Fuller, and Mary John Stewart Griffin (Bill) and another dear niece, Claire Bradley Ong of Franklin, Tenn. Mark Cohn Bradley (Susan), a nephew of Virginia Beach, Va., predeceased her.
Ada was a treasured friend and confidant of her close grandnieces and nephews: John Ross Griffin, Jake Griffin, Stewart Fuller and Macie Fuller. Her other grandnephews and niece loved her from a distance: Daniel Robin Ong, Sam John Bradley and Angela Kate Ong.
Ada was one of those rare people who lit up every room she entered and brought warmth to all she met, none more so than her large family, including Dallas cousins Ann Beckham McCurdy and Frankie Beckham Hall. She entertained friends and family endlessly as a legendary story teller and joke teller. She loved life but willingly let go of it when besieged by health problems from which there was no recovery. Memorial gifts can go to a charity of the donor’s choice. A celebration of her life may be scheduled later.
