Mary Sumpter’s daily to-do list would likely tire many younger people.

Yesterday, she drove for the Bermuda Red Cross, helped with church chores and took communion to housebound church members.

She allowed herself a crossword puzzle as a break.

Today’s list is shorter. The 78-year-old plans to mow the lawn and clean the house.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be mowing my lawn at my age,” she laughed, “but it needs doing.”

Church is a central part of her life.

“I’m a spiritual person,” she said. “I loved going to church as a child. I loved the music and the singing.”

She was inspired to become a lay preacher 15 years ago after hearing a sermon Ray Hagerman gave at Wesley Methodist Church.

Mrs Sumpter isn’t ordained, but can now give sermons of her own.

“I felt like God was talking to me,” she said. “I felt he wanted me to do this.”

She signed up for a two-year lay preacher course and did so well she was recruited as a teacher.

She credits her mother Phyllis Jolley with her spirituality.

“I was born in Cowplain, Hampshire, England,” said Mrs Sumpter. “I remember my mother showing me a stained-glass window at church.

“The scene was of Noah and the flood. I remember her explaining to me the meaning of the rainbow. It means hope.”

Mrs Sumpter was nine when she came to Bermuda in 1946. Her father Donald was a Captain in the Royal Engineers and was stationed here.

“We lived next to Fort Hamilton,” she said. “I remember being sent to the Supreme Food Store on Happy Valley Road to get things for my mother.

“When I asked them I would always say ‘Do you have any ...’ in a very doubtful way.

“Stores back in England often did not have what you needed because of rationing. Of course, in Bermuda they almost always had what my mother needed. The store owners must have really wondered about this little English girl.”

Bermuda seemed like paradise, especially after living in war-torn England.

“Cowplain did get bombed,” said Mrs Sumpter. “A landmine landed in a field near my grandmother’s house. It made such a large crater that a pond eventually formed there. The blast from it knocked my grandmother’s roof off. It was at the beginning of the war and there were no bomb shelters yet. She got under a sturdy oak table in her dining room.

“When they found her later she was still under the table with rubble all around her. She was never the same afterward.”

Her family loved living in Bermuda so much that her father eventually turned down a post in Europe so they could remain here.

“Immigrating to Bermuda was easier back then,” said Mrs Sumpter. “There were only about 20,000 people on the Island. There were only about six private cars when we came and a few little buses. When we went for a day out my father hired a horse and carriage.”

The family got into life in Bermuda by way of Wesley.

“We arrived in November and I didn’t start at the Bermuda High School until January,” she said. “So I made my first friend at Wesley.

“Back then there were about 100 children in the Sunday school. Today there are only about 15.

“It’s sad, but children today have other activities on a Sunday. Back then you never would have scheduled an activity on a Sunday morning. That time was set aside for church.”

As an adult she tried to teach Sunday school but that only lasted for a year.

“I had a class of five-year-olds,” she said. “Until then I thought I might become a teacher. I couldn’t control the children.

“There was this one little boy who was the comedian who liked to throw himself out of his chair to make the other children laugh.

“After that I said, no I think I’ll take a secretarial course. Maybe I should have become a teacher as I do like children. But preaching is a kind of teaching. You learn something from listening to a sermon.”

She held a number of jobs over the years. One of her first jobs was writing advertising copy for Masters Ltd.

“It was the early days of local television commercials in Bermuda,” she said. “It’s laughable now but I drew pictures and wrote the script for the ads, and they put these pictures and the script up on the screen. It seems so primitive now.” Later, she worked for an insurance company in the claims department, and eventually found her niche in contract wording.

“My boss called me the wordings guru,” she said. “I love words and I love puzzles.”

She married and had four children — Michael, Peter and Richard Smith and Heather Athanasiou — and divorced.

She met her second husband, Norman Sumpter, at church.

“He invited me to a summer cruise to Hawkins Island,” she said. “At the time I was divorced and raising four children.

“I didn’t have a lot of money so he paid for the tickets in exchange for me bringing the potato salad. He was very warm and funny and I still think of funny things he said or jokes he told.

“When we met I’d been on my own for eight years. I did not expect to get married again at 43.”

Mr Sumpter died 15 years ago from heart problems.

“The last thing he ever said to me was, ‘Mary, you’ve taken care of me like the crown jewels,” said Mrs Sumpter.