Obituary: Wilma Alice Gemmell Kidd

Wilma Alice Gemmell Kidd, former Southern Baptist missionary to Brazil, died June 24 in Robert Lee. She was 101. She was born to Robert and Ellen Gemmell Jan. 26, 1922, on the family farm in northeastern Nebraska. At age 11, she made her profession of faith in Jesus Christ and was baptized at Carroll Baptist Church in Wayne County, Neb. After she graduated from Carroll High School, she attended State Teachers College in Wayne, Neb., and completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at Howard Payne College—now Howard Payne University—in Brownwood in 1946. Three years later, she graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth with a Master of Religious Education degree. She also studied at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark., and University of Alabama in Birmingham. She was educational secretary at First Baptist Church in Stephenville and worked as a secretary at the national office of the Woman’s Missionary Union in Birmingham, Ala. She also taught in rural schools and worked in sales of office systems. Fulfilling a calling to foreign missions, she arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sept. 12, 1963, as associate missionary with the Southern Baptist Convention Foreign Mission Board. She worked in the board’s financial office in Rio de Janeiro, and she sang in church choirs and in the Association for Singing of Choral Music. She and Jesse L. Kidd, a Southern Baptist missionary working in the Baptist school at Volta Redonda in the state of Rio de Janeiro, married Oct. 14, 1967, in St. John’s Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. In July 1969, they returned to Brazil as Foreign Mission Board associate missionaries. They served in the state of Santa Catarina in pioneer evangelism. In 1976, they moved to Montes Claros in the state of Minas Gerais, where he served as director of missions of the North Association of Baptist Churches and she guided children’s and adult choirs in churches. Missionary service in Brazil continued until 1989 when the Kidds retired to Baptist Retirement Community in San Angelo. They were members of Immanuel Baptist Church and First Baptist Church, where she was a member of the Mary/Martha Sunday School class. She taught adult Sunday School classes and sang in sanctuary choirs and in the San Angelo Symphony Chorale. At Baptist Retirement Community, she sang in the chapel services. She was preceded in death by her husband Jesse in 2020; brothers Donald Gemmell, Allan Gemmell, John Gemmell, Ralph Gemmell and Fred Gemmell; and sisters: Elsie Whitney, Jean Smith, Elizabeth Norris and Jessie Back. She is survived by nieces and nephews and their families. A memorial service is scheduled at 10 a.m. on Saturday, July 1, at the chapel of Baptist Retirement Community in San Angelo under the direction of Robert Massie Funeral Home. Memorial gifts may be made to the Wilma Alice Gemmell Kidd and Jesse L. Kidd Endowed Scholarship at Howard Payne University, P.O. Box 2369, Brownwood, TX 76804 or to a ministry of your choice.