Lois Marie Miller Towles Crews Wayne

Lois Marie Miller Towles Crews Wayne of Mount Pleasant has passed at the age of 96 surrounded by her loving family on April 7, 2019. A graveside service will be held on Thursday, April 11, 2019 at 2 pm in Magnolia Cemetery, 70 Cunnington Avenue, Charleston, SC 29405. Arrangements by J. HENRY STUHR, INC., MOUNT PLEASANT CHAPEL.

Mrs. Wayne was born in Charleston, SC on November 13, 1922 to Charles D. Miller and Helen Ruth Johnson Miller, both of Charleston, SC to a 10th generation Charlestonian family. Lois was raised in Charleston on Bull Street where she attended Bennett Primary School followed by Memminger and was a member of Citadel Square Baptist Church, where she sang in the choir. Lois also spent summers at Porcher's Bluff. While she was in school, Lois was student head of sports and loved swimming and shrimping. She was also one of the first female lifeguards at the community pool on George Street.

After completing her schooling, Lois married Louis Palmer Towles ("Big Louis") of Orangeburg, SC on March 20, 1942 and had three sons together: Dr. Louis Palmer Towles II (1943-2004), Dr. Winfield Chamberlain Towles (1946-2006), and Scott Keith Towles (1947-1947). Big Louis was a master carpenter and furniture maker in Charleston. Big Louis died on January 5, 1949 at the age of 33. On November 4, 1954, Lois married Walter Peelman Crews (1922-1982), of Hampton, SC, who was an editor of the Evening Post, and they had one son, Walter Peelman Crews, Jr. It was at this time that Lois moved to the Old Village of Mount Pleasant. Lois remarried on January 23, 1988 in Mount Pleasant to Francis Augustus Wayne, Jr. (1927-2014) of Porcher's Bluff. Francis was a Payroll Director for the SC Ports Authority. Mrs. Wayne worked for 30 years in the medical field as an EKG technician for five years at Roper Hospital and 25 years at MUSC. She was an avid enthusiast of camellias and in her youth was a water safety instructor and lifeguard. She also volunteered at First Baptist Church in Mount Pleasant while living with her second husband in the Old Village.

Her older sister, Helen Schiller, and youngest brother, Bobby Miller, preceded Lois in death, but her sister, Constance "Connie" Thompson of Wadmalaw Island, and brother, Charles "Dickie" Miller of Jacksonville, FL, survived Lois. She is survived also by her son, Walt Crews Jr. of Chattanooga, TN, ten grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren. As a testament to how beloved she was, a number of her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even close friends' children are named after her. She is greatly loved and will be missed by all.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations to the American Heart Association, Memorial & Tributes Center, 4217 Park Place Court, Glen Allen, VA 23060.