Ms. Frankie L. Pierce, 100, of Vestavia Hills, died Aug. 3, 2019. She and her fraternal twin brother, Pinkney, were born four months after their father, Pinkney Andrew “Pink” Minton, died in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918.

Their father’s death left Lillie Leath Minton with 7 surviving children: Willie, Lucille, Roy, Viva, Paul, and twins Pinkney and Frankie. With savings from under the mattress, Lillie bought burial plots and the home they were renting in Attalla. She raised her children in her faith as a co-founder of the Attalla/Gadsden area Church of God (of Anderson, Indiana). Frankie was the last surviving child.

In 1938, Frankie graduated from Etowah High School while working part time for her brother, Roy Minton, in his grocery store. Not having money to go to nursing school, she worked full time at Conn Ribbon Mill in Attalla. After marriage, she traveled by train for three days to join her Army Air Corps husband in Bakersfield, California. In 1952, while working as head cashier at Safeway, the grocery store collapsed around her during a severe aftershock from the strongest earthquake to strike California since the 1906 San Francisco quake. After returning to her hometown, she managed the Top Value Stamp Store in Gadsden. Later in life, she worked at Parisians in Vestavia.

Devoted daughter Nila Pierce Swann and husband Jack W. Swann, as well as devoted nephew Larry Brackett and his wife Mary survive Frankie. Former spouse Fred Pierce and son Brian Pierce of Bakersfield, predeceased Frankie. She has three grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren. Frankie has many loving nieces and nephews. First cousins include the Leath and Locklear families of Fort Payne, and the Minton family of Gadsden and Attalla.

She cherished her close relationship with her son-in-law’s parents, Jack and Mary Lanier Swann of Talladega. She will be joining them in the Swann family plot at Marseilles Cemetery in West Point.

The funeral service is Saturday, Aug. 10 at 1 p.m. (CDT), 2 p.m. (EDT) in the chapel at Johnson Brown-Service Funeral Home, 3700 20th Ave., Valley, AL 36854. The phone number is (334) 768-2141. The visitation will be 30 minutes prior to the service.

Johnson Brown-Service Funeral Home of Valley directing.