Ina Love Lewis Little

Ina Love Lewis Little

November 20, 1922 – November 17, 2014

Ina Love Lewis Little, 91, of Wilson passed away Monday.  Her funeral service will be conducted 3 p.m. Thursday at First United Methodist Church, 100 Green Street, Wilson.  Interment will follow in Maplewood Cemetery, Wilson.  The Rev. Bob Bergland and Rev. Charles Robl will officiate.   The family will receive friends 6 – 8 p.m. Wednesday evening at Joyner’s Funeral Home, 4100 Raleigh Road Parkway.   In the eyes of her children she was beautiful and a southern steel magnolia.  She was strong as an Oak, with a heart the size of Montana and determined.  Ina was born in 1922 and grew up on a share cropper farm in Middlesex during the great depression.  She told stories of learning how to plow behind a mule, pick cotton and crop tobacco.  She had a wonderful youth that was full of family and church.  Ina was a sports enthusiast, lettering in basketball at Middlesex High School.  Before WWII and after graduating in 1939 she moved to Baltimore and worked for a brief time as a LPN.  With the war looming she moved home and then to Wilson.  In 1942 she took a job as the projectionist and lobby hostess at the Carolina (Colony) Theater in Wilson on Goldsboro, Street.  She was the first female projectionist in North Carolina.  After the war was over she was so good at her job, the owner let her stay in the position.  She worked at the Carolina Theater until she married Harvey Little in 1956.  In 1967, she went back to work at what was then the Colony Theater.  Ina worked in the local theaters until she was 84.  Ina was a member of the First United Methodist Church and the Vanguard Class.  She was an avid golfer and enjoyed traveling with her husband and sisters.  She had an infectious smile and a dry sense of humor that will endure in hearts of her friends, family and her children forever.   Ina is survived by her daughter, Nancy Little Owens and husband, Billy of Wilson; her three sons, Neil Lewis Little of Fuquay Varina, Charles Ollin “C.O.” Little of Raleigh and Eric Harvey Little of Greensboro; her five grandchildren, Kinsey Nicole Owens, Hannah Love Little, Connor McClean Little, Charles Howell Little and Henry Heath Little; her sisters, Jean Finch of Newport News, Virginia and Marie Lewis of Wilson and her brother, Frank Lewis and wife, Carol of Goldsboro.   She was preceded in death by her husband, Charles Harvey Little; her parents, Dewey and Nancy Lewis and her brother, Richard Lewis.   Flowers are welcome or memorials may be directed to the First United Methodist Church, PO Box 1423, Wilson, NC  27894.   Condolences may be directed to www.joyners.net.