Funeral for a beloved folk artist

Annie Geraldine Wellborn may have once been the most-visited woman in Bishop - at least by visitors outside the county, the state and the nation.

As her stature as a folk artist grew, so did the output of her paintings of angels and the artwork about her past that others had labeled "memory paintings." She painted scenes on plywood, benches, vinyl records, wallpaper samples, just about anything.

Wellborn died the morning of April 23 at her home near Statham. She had left Bishop about seven years earlier and settled in an aged farmhouse down a dirt lane in Barrow County to be near her daughter Mary Ridgeway, who soon would die of cancer.

But once upon a time, Wellborn lived at 5440 Price Mill Road, Bishop, in a single-wide trailer. A sign along the road read, "Annie's Memory's in Art." She had lived here many years, hosted many visitors and produced a prodigious amount of paintings. Other than her paintings, Wellborn was known for her generosity, storytelling and an ability to turn strangers into friends.

Her family and friends gathered on April 25 inside Lord & Stephens Funeral Home in Oconee County, where her final rites were held.

Wellborn's daughter Sandra Hanson said her mother had planned the funeral, from the dress she wore to the sermon