- Date Of Birth: August 15, 1924
- Date Of Death: May 2, 2013
- State: Texas
Paul Nathan Mitchell, August 15, 1924 – May 2, 2013.
Paul Nathan Mitchell, born August 15, 1924, in Ashley County, Arkansas, passed away on May 2, 2013, in Temple, Texas. After Pearl Harbor, Paul stayed in high school long enough to complete his senior football season in Crossett, Arkansas, serving as team co-captain, then joined the U.S. Navy and spent most of World War II in the Pacific aboard the U.S.S. Tennessee.
He had sailed around the world by the time he turned 21 and would log many more travel miles over the years. After the war, Paul attended Ouachita Baptist College, where he met and married Anna Beth Phillips. After graduation, he worked as an accountant for Lion Oil Company in El Dorado, Arkansas, then entered ministerial training at Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Paul and Anna Beth had daughter Paula in El Dorado and son Phillip in Fort Worth. By 1956, Paul had entered the U.S. Army as a chaplain; son Mark would arrive while the family was living near Paul’s duty station in Germany. Paul, who had been orphaned at age five, always appreciated the family he and Anna Beth had created.
In the mid-60s, Paul served as a chaplain with the 41st Signal Battalion in Qui Nhon, Vietnam, and in 2005 would publish an article in Vietnam magazine, “Another Side of Vietnam,” in which he shared the ways in which he and members of the battalion had volunteered time and resources at the local orphanage, school, and leprosarium. Retiring from the military at Fort Hood in 1973, Paul pastored Keys Valley Baptist Church in Belton, then became South Asian field director for Compassion International, a child-care organization. He and Anna Beth moved to Chicago, then to Colorado Springs, and he traveled extensively for Compassion in India, Thailand, and Burma, then in South America, often accompanied by Anna Beth. In 1987, Paul retired again, and the couple returned to Central Texas to be near their children and grandchildren.
The two were active in the Columbus Avenue Baptist Church International program in Waco, and Paul put much of his energy into creating bountiful home gardens each year. He lived his last years at the Meridian Retirement Center in Temple. He always loved his family fiercely and was justly proud of his service in both the Navy and Army and of his Compassion work. Paul was predeceased by eight of his nine siblings. Survivors include his remaining sibling, Nell Mitchell Gray of Texarkana, and his wife of 65 years, Anna Beth Phillips Mitchell of Temple. He is also survived by nephew Murray Vinson Elton and wife Julie of Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Children are Paula Mitchell Marks and husband Alan of Buda, Texas; Phillip Mitchell and wife Pam of Clifton, Texas; and Mark Mitchell and wife Ann of Pflugerville, Texas, as well as grandchildren Elizabeth Mitchell Ball and husband Andy, Timothy Mitchell and wife Britni, Carrie Marks Nelson and husband Joshua, and Rebecca Mitchell. His five great-grandchildren are Riley, Ruthie, Hunter, Luke, and Ava.
