Famebridge Frances Cunningham Payne died of natural causes on May 18 at Gilchrist Center Howard County in Columbia, Md. The longtime Columbia and Baltimore resident was 90. Services are planned for Saturday, June 1st at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ellicott City.
Mrs. Payne was born in Richmond, VA, to the late Katherine (Banks) and Charles Cunningham, a domestic and a train porter. She spent her early years in a red brick townhome on Clay Street and graduated in 1950 from Armstrong High School. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1954 from Virginia State University, she began working as a schoolteacher in Richmond. She later studied at the University of Pennsylvania.
She met her future husband, fellow Richmond educator Osborne Payne, in 1960, during an education conference in New York City, when he surrendered his seat to her on a crowded bus. They wed on March 18, 1961, at her family church, First African Baptist in Richmond.
Their first child, Famebridge Sannequille, was born the following year in Richmond. Soon after, the family moved to Liberia, West Africa, where Mr. Payne served as educational advisor for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He oversaw the building of 20 schools, from 1962-63, the year their daughter Sarita Sinyea was born in Liberia.
After the school construction project, Mrs. Payne supported her husband and the physical education program at Liberia’s Cuttington College, an Episcopal liberal arts school he served from 1963-65 as acting Dean of Instruction.
The family returned to Virginia in 1965, where Mrs. Payne taught school in Roanoke; and he went to work for Total Action Against Poverty. In 1967, he accepted a job with the National Education Association (NEA) in Washington, DC as director of NEA-SEARCH, to locate available positions for teachers. The family ultimately moved to Washington, where she taught at Sherman Elementary School.
While attending a principal’s convention in Miami, Mr. Payne met a McDonald’s owner-operator, who encouraged him to apply for a McDonald’s license.
In 1974, the family opened their first McDonald’s on Broadway, between North Avenue and Harford Road, in east Baltimore. They spent the next two decades opening and operating McDonald’s franchises throughout the city, including at North Avenue and Charles Street, Franklin Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and Greenmount Avenue and 28th Street and on Liberty Road in Baltimore County. They also ran a McDonald’s corporate store on Eutaw Street in downtown Baltimore.
The family settled in Silver Spring, and Mrs. Payne began teaching in 1969 in Montgomery County, including at the former Four Corners Elementary. She last served as a Reading Teacher at New Hampshire Estates Elementary School, from which she retired in 1977 to work for the family restaurant business.
The family was recognized for training and employing thousands of Baltimore City youth and remained active in community and charitable circles.
She was a member of NEA and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); the Columbia (MD) Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; the Columbia Chapter, National Epicureans, Inc; the Columbia (MD) Chapter of The Links, Inc.; an Archousa (wife member) of the Gamma Boule chapter of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, Inc.; the Red Hat Society; and the Que-ettes, wives of members of the Tau Pi chapter of Omega Psi Fraternity, Inc. She was also a member of the Columbia chapter of the National Association of Negro Business & Professional Women’s Clubs, which recognized her with an award in 1987.
She was a longtime, active member of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ellicott City, where she taught Sunday School, played in the Handbell Choir and served on the Altar Guild and the Antique Show Committee.
She was predeceased by her husband, who died in 2012; and her step-daughter, Andrea Kyles, who died in 2004. She is survived by her daughters, Famebridge S. Witherspoon (Gary) and Sarita Payne, both of Columbia; five grandchildren, Astarte Barnett (Joshua) of Phoenix, AZ; Jordahn Witherspoon (Priscilla) of Putnam, CT; Ahmadee and Clark Witherspoon, both of Southbridge, MA; and Jackson Witherspoon of Columbia; and five great-grandchildren, Londyn, Aubri and Linkyn Barnett of Phoenix, and Vanessa and Jeremiah Witherspoon of Putnam; and many friends.
Services are planned for Saturday, June 1st at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ellicott City. They will begin with a Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Omega Omega service at 9:30, followed by a visitation from 10-11 a.m., with a funeral to start at 11:30 a.m. Burial will follow at the adjacent St. John’s Cemetery. A repast will follow at the church hall.