Lois M. Hall

Celebrating Lois M. Hall:

Gifted. Blessed. Loved.

Her parents, Ernest McGhee Sr. and Mattie Lacey McGhee, welcomed baby Lois Bernice McGhee into the world on October 29, 1936. She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, a city that would shape her and that she, in turn, would help shape. Long before anyone called her "Dear," she was a girl walking the halls of Hudson Elementary School and later graduating from Carver High School, already carrying the discipline and grace that would define nearly nine decades of living.

Early in life, she knew exactly what she wanted. Teaching and playing piano were her passions, and she never wavered from either - she spent a lifetime sharpening both gifts. She married Lee Andrew Storey, and while raising three children - Acquanetta Storey Penick, Ernest LaRoy (whose wife is Yvonne), and LeAngela Storey Aitken - she earned her bachelor's degree in education from Miles College. She didn't stop there. She went on to the University of Alabama at Birmingham to earn a Master's and Advanced Studies degrees in Education, building her credentials even as she built a career and a family. In time, the family grew to include grandchildren Erica Penick and Aaron Aitken, great-grandchildren, Karanja R. Williams Jr. and Karan'Ja C. Williams, and great-great-grandchildren, Eliana C. Williams and K'aidyn C. Simmons - four generations she poured herself into and adored with a love beyond explanation.

Education was her calling long before it was her title. She began as a classroom teacher, and within a few years advanced to guidance counselor, then reading specialist, then assistant principal - each step a testament to a woman who never stopped growing and never stopped lifting others. And, she rarely held just one job at a time. She tutored privately in the evenings and worked in the reading lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, helping students who weren't yet reading at college level find their footing. She was an educator who never clocked out.

After retirement, Miles College - her alma mater - called her back to help incoming freshmen who needed remedial reading support. She built a program that worked so well that it grew into a new department, Freshman Studies, giving every entering student a real path to success in college.

For a season, her path took her north to Cleveland, Ohio, where she played piano for the choir at St. Timothy Missionary Baptist Church. It was there she first crossed paths with Joseph J. Hall, who sang in the male chorus. Many years passed before they'd have a chance to meet again - but when they were both free, love found its way. A long-distance courtship began, he in Ohio, she in Alabama, phone calls and visits carrying a love that had waited patiently for its moment. They married and were blessed with twenty years of true love, a devotion that lasted until his passing in 2007. It was a second chapter she never expected and never took for granted.

Wherever she lived, music followed her, or maybe she followed it. She sat at the piano for Bethel Baptist Church for 50 years and Payne Chapel AME Church 49. She played at least one afternoon service (sometimes two) every Sunday throughout the city, services that often stretched past her own congregation's until nine at night. She played for special choir occasions wherever she was needed, never turning down an invitation to lead praise and worship. Church was her joy. Music was her heartbeat. When she played, it wasn't performance - it was devotion.

She was, above all else, a forever learner - and a forever teacher. To be in her presence was to receive something: encouragement when you needed lifting, admonition when you needed correcting, an educational challenge when you needed stretching. She loved children fiercely and specifically, and she insisted - insisted - that her grandchildren spend their summers with her. She took them to swimming lessons and poured into them not just as their grandmother but as the educator and elder she had always been.

Lois Bernice McGhee Hall passed away on Saturday, June 27, 2026, leaving a legacy of unconditional love and fingerprints in every space she occupied. She has poured intentionally into her work, her church, her friend group, her community of students, her choir members, and anyone else in her presence in a way that leaves a mark. She often used to say, "When I'm gone I want you to miss me." Well done, Dear! Because we do.