Wilma Ann Long

In Loving Memory of Wilma Ann Earwood Long
July 15, 1941 – October 9, 2025

There was in Wilma Ann Earwood Long a quiet persistence born of the Georgia clay itself, the kind that holds its shape after the rain has washed everything else away. Born on July 15, 1941, in Floyd County to Emmett and Beatrice “Carey” Earwood, Wilma’s life began in the soft hum of summer, where the fields and pines stretched wide and time moved with the patience of the earth.

She passed from this life on Thursday, October 9, 2025, in Rome, Georgia, at eighty-four years of age. In her passing, a certain light, steady but unassuming, and deeply rooted dimmed across the hearts of those who loved her.

Wilma lived the kind of life that did not seek applause, but left a mark all the same. For years she served as a Licensed Practical Nurse at Floyd Medical Center, tending to the fragile boundary between suffering and recovery with hands that knew both strength and mercy. In that quiet labor she stitched her name, not on monuments or accolades, but in the small mercies that outlast the body. She clasped hands of the hurting and healed and whispered prayers of comfort.

Wilma is survived by her son, Charles Johnston; her daughters, Sherry Folds and Susie Johnston. They each carry forward the rhythm of her patience and the deep cadence of her love. Her legacy flows on through her grandchildren, Jimmy Folds, Tiffany Howerton (Brandon), Amber Shaffer, Chase Johnston, McKenna Johnston, and Anna Broach, and through her great-grandchildren, Katlynn Shaffer, Baylee Shaffer, Brinleigh Howerton, Brooklyn Howerton, Keziah Folds, and Emily Shaffer. Each one a living echo of the woman whose laughter once softened their storms.

Wilma is also survived by her brother, Leon Earwood, and her sister, Carol Baker, who remember her not merely in name but in the hush between words when family gathers, and in the shared glance that says more than grief can hold. She is preceded in death by her parents, whose lessons of work and faith she carried like invisible garments, worn close to the heart.

Those who knew her best understood that though Wilma’s love was a steady current, it was never loud, never showy, but constant as breath. She adored her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and in them she found renewal, as if through their bright eyes the world could be seen once more with wonder.

Her story, simple yet immense, belongs to the long line of Southern women who bore much, gave much, and asked little. In her leaving, there remains that stillness one feels when dusk settles over a familiar porch. The silence that hums with memory.

Good Shepherd Funeral Home is honored to have been entrusted with the arrangements.

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