Nashville sheriff’s officer dies after 54-year career
Nashville TN September 12 2023 Mary Price, a beloved Nashville jailhouse supervisor who worked for five sheriffs, died Monday night after working what would be the last day of her 54-year career there. She was 89.
“She was the Dolly Parton of the sheriff’s office,” Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall said Tuesday morning. “Everyone loved her. There are tears dribbling down every hallway of this building.”
Price began working for the sheriff’s department in 1969 in the warrants division before transitioning to management, Hall said. Price ran the women’s jail programs in the 1980s and has spent the last 25 or so years running the volunteer/church programs.
Price also has belonged to the same North Nashville church, the Fourteenth Avenue Missionary Baptist Church, since she was 15 years old, said Tam Gordon, longtime state and city government administrator and wife of the church’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Frank S. Gordon.
Price, an active parishioner, played piano for the church choir for 73 of her 74 years there, giving up the job last year. She went to services almost every Sunday.
At church and at work, Price was known as a prolific sender of greeting cards, celebrating friends and coworkers for most any occasion − or no occasion at all.
“She remembered birthdays, and everybody always got a card from her, on your birthday, just to say thank you, thinking of you, just to say you’re a good person,” Tam Gordon said.
Price was old-school in other ways, too. She kept her contacts on cards in a giant Rolodex instead of on her cellphone, Hall said,
At home and at work, Price served as a matriarch. Always loving, Price carried out that role with a firm hand from time to time, her colleagues and associates said.
“Billy Graham advised a whole bunch of presidents. And Mary Price advised five sheriffs,” Hall said. “And if she told you something, you did it.”
“She would check you when you needed checking,” Tam Gordon said, laughing. “I dare not go to church with my arm showing and let her see it. By the time she got there, I had my jacket on because otherwise, I’d hear from her.”
Frank Gordon said Price was the member that every church pastor wanted.
“But she was also the member that every pastor needs,” he added.
“She loved God, her church and all our members. As a great musician, she drew out the talents of so many. Our entire congregation will remember her love, her quick wit and her giving nature,” the pastor said. “Now we will prepare to rally for her son and grandchildren as she has rallied for so many at these times.”
Price is survived by her son, Calvin Price, and five grandchildren. Her son Mackey preceded her in death more than 20 years ago.
A funeral is being planned for the Fourteenth Avenue Missionary Baptist Church, 2501 Buchanan St., but details are not finalized yet.
