Melissa Kaye Yeary Wells, children’s Sunday school teacher and daughter of one Baptist pastor and wife of another, died Feb. 4 in Houston. She was 59. She was born Jan. 5, 1966, in Louisville, Ky., to Dan and Melinda Yeary. Missy made her profession of faith and was baptized at South Main Baptist Church in Houston in 1974, when her father was on staff as minister to single adults. Shortly after, the family moved to Coral Gables, Fla., where her father was pastor of University Baptist Church. In 1984, Missy traveled back to Texas to attend Baylor University, where she was president of Pi Beta Phi and eventually reigned as Homecoming Queen in her senior year. After graduation, she returned to her alma mater in 1989 to lead the Baylor Student Foundation. She met Steve Wells in her first week in that work, and they married a few days shy of a year later. She returned to South Main in 2003 when her husband became the congregation’s pastor. She served South Main in countless ways, particularly as a Sunday school teacher of 2-year-olds, making it her mission for young children to know and love Jesus and his church as she did. She is survived by her husband of 34 years Steve; daughter Rachel Lawrence and her husband Blake; sons Ben and Josh; grandchildren Fischer, Lila and Shepherd; her brother Wes Yeary and his wife Erica and their four children; and her brother Doak Yeary and his wife Amy and their three children.
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