Louise Wilson

    Louise Wilson, who had worked as a housekeeper for many prominent East Hampton families since coming here from Walterboro, S.C., in 1956, died on Saturday at the Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead. She was 74 and had been ill with lung cancer for a year.

    A missionary at Calvary Baptist Church in East Hampton, she sang in the church choir there and never missed a year working on the church’s annual barbecue benefit. Until recent years, she was also a familiar face at the polling place in Springs, where she worked as an election inspector.

    Connie Mabrey of East Hampton, a good friend whom Ms. Wilson described as an “adopted daughter,” said Ms. Wilson’s “cheerful and loving nature and her indomitable spirit were a blessing to her community and will be sorely missed.”

    “Her long walk with the Lord and her abiding faith were the testament to her life,” the Rev. Connie Jones of Calvary Baptist said.

    Born in Walterboro on Sept. 16, 1938, she was a daughter of John and Haddie Williams Gant. A marriage to Tom Wilson ended in divorce.

    She is survived by a son, David Wilson of Riverhead, as well as six siblings. They are Patricia Calleton and Julia Johnson of Walterboro, and Renner Haynes, Virginia Sanders, Isaac Gant, and Cleveland Gant, all of Tampa, Fla. Four granddaughters and 16 great-grandchildren also survive.

    A service will be held at Calvary Baptist Church at 11 a.m. on Dec. 22.