Obituary: Minette Williams Drumwright Pratt

Minette Williams Drumwright Pratt, missions advocate and denominational servant, died June 15.

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Minette Williams Drumwright Pratt, missions advocate and denominational servant, died June 15. She was 93. She was born Nov. 3, 1930, in Nixon to Tallie Williams and Minnie Musgrave Williams. Shortly thereafter, her family moved to San Antonio where her father was pastor of Northside Baptist Church until he retired. She earned an undergraduate degree in English from Baylor University in 1951. At Baylor, she met and fell in love with Huber L. Drumwright Jr., a young pastor and doctoral student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. They married shortly after her graduation. While he went on to become pastor of churches in Texas and Oklahoma, she led numerous missions action projects, Bible studies, Bible schools and Woman’s Missionary Union groups. The Drumwrights moved to Fort Worth in 1960 for Huber to become a professor of Greek and New Testament at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He later became dean of the School of Theology, and she took on the duties of a dean’s spouse while continuing many of her own pursuits.  Her passion for missions action flourished through a cutting-edge initiative, the Baptist Center at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth. She designed and led programs for low-income women, battered women, orphans, unwed mothers and women prisoners. She was in great demand as a speaker and served on boards of the Woman’s Missionary Union, Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board), Baptist General Convention of Texas, Seminary Woman’s Club, Woman’s Club of Fort Worth, Friends of the Fort Worth Library, Lena Pope Children’s Home, Edna Gladney Home and Dorcas House. She attended Southwestern Seminary and later served as president of the Southwestern Seminary Alumni. In 1978, she wrote a seminary extension study guide, Women in the Church. She received the Mrs. J.M. Dawson Award for outstanding contributions to the denomination from the Southern Baptist Convention Ministers’ Wives Conference in 1984. In 1980, the Drumwrights moved to Little Rock, Ark., where he served as executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Arkansas.  After 18 months, Huber died of a sudden heart attack when Minette was 50 years old.  Shortly thereafter, she was asked to join the leadership team of Keith Parks and Bill O’Brien at the Foreign Mission Board in Richmond, Va. She worked at the FMB 13 years and was the inaugural director of international prayer strategies, through which she designed programs to engage churches and individuals in prayer for foreign missions. She launched a prayer line relaying the latest prayer requests of missionaries, and she traveled the world to speak, teach, preach and lead programs on prayer in places such as Moldova, China and Africa.  As she stated, “Although some governments won’t let missionaries in, they can’t keep the effects of prayer out.” She wrote two books—The Life That Prays: Reflections on Prayer as a Strategy and When My Faith Feels Shallow: Pursuing the Depths of God—and a seminary extension study guide, Women in the Church. After retiring, she returned to Fort Worth. She served on the Baylor University board of regents from 1999 to 2008. She fell in love with William (Bill) Pratt, a retired Baptist pastor and psychologist, and they married in 2002. He was a devoted, loving partner to her through her long battle with Alzheimer’s Disease until his death in April of 2024. She is survived by two daughters, Minette (Meme) Drumwright and husband H.W. Perry Jr., and Debra Underwood and husband Max; three grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren; two stepchildren—Martha Pratt Wainwright and husband Larry, and James Pratt and wife Dana; six step-grandchildren; and many step-great-grandchildren. The family requests that donations be made to Baylor University—Drumwright Family Lecture Fund (Honors College), William and Minette Pratt Scholarship Fund (Dianna R. Garland School of Social Work), Louise Herrington School of Nursing—or Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth.


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