"When I go to heaven, I want to take somebody with me." 
    That one sentence explains why Eva Mae LeFevre has worked for so hard and for so long in Gospel music.
    "It’s nice to get applause," she said, in an interview with The Christian View. "It’s wonderful to get the sanction, the smiles, the devotion of the people to you and your work. But there is nothing like seeing a soul saved. When someone walks forward at the end of each service or concert, and I get to pray with them, that’s the joy of my life. And I feel that way today, more than ever. If I have won one soul to the Lord, then it has been worth it. 
    "It has been a wonderful life, but it has been a hard life. We would sing in one place one night, and the next night might be 500 miles away or even as much as 1,000 miles away. So, after we would come off the stage, we would travel all night long and the next day to the next destination. I had to give up having a church to fellowship with all of the time. I was always singing for somebody else’s church. That’s the way we made our living, doing concerts and church work, and we did weddings and funerals. I’ve sung in about every cow pasture in outdoor singings. It’s not what most people think it is. It’s not the easy life. It’s a sacrificial life. I chose to work for the Lord, and, since I’m not a preacher, I sing my songs for Him."
    Her father, Rev. H.L. ‘Harry’ Whittington, who was a preacher, was the greatest influence on her life. He saw musical talent in his four-year-old daughter, and he encouraged her, she said. As a small child, sitting in her father’s lap, she played the pump organ in church. "He would pump the old pump organ, and I would play it," she said. "That’s the way I got started. Back then, we didn’t have a choir. Anything the congregation sang, I could play. I never had a lesson." 

      
                                     Eva Mae LeFevre

    Born August 7, 1917 in McCall, South Carolina, Eva Mae is the oldest of nine children. She has four sisters and one brother still living.
    "I had the sweetest mother in the world," she said of Lydia Whittington. "She had so much love and kindness and patience."
    Eva Mae traveled with her father in his ministry, from church to church, until, at the age of 17, she married Urias LeFevre, a traveling singer. "I’ve been traveling the rest of my life," she said. 
    She had first met her husband-to-be when she was only eight years old and he was age 16, when Urias and his brother, Alphus, came to sing at the Church of God church her father pastored in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She played the piano that night. "When Urias left the next morning," she explained, "he told his brother, ‘Well, I met my wife last night.’ He waited until I was 17 years old, and we married." 
    They married at Tremont Avenue Church of God in Greenville, South Carolina and lived in nearby Anderson. 
    Eva Mae, Urias, and Alphus formed The LeFevre Trio, traveling and singing in revival services at different churches. They moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1939.


           
                   Eva Mae LeFevre, her husband, Urias,
                          his brother, Alphus (The LeFevre Trio),
                    with Eva Mae's father, Rev. H.L. Whittington


    Eva Mae said that, in her early days, she had offers to sing ‘the blues’ or ‘pop music’, what she calls ‘the way of the world,’ offers of fame in Hollywood. "I gave a big ‘no’ without ever having to think about it," she said. Southern Gospel was the music she loved.
    Her favorite of the songs the LeFevre Trio sang remains "The Prettiest Flowers", which is the most requested by audiences. 
    Another song she is requested to sing is "Without Him", written by her son, Mylon LeFevre, who now is a preacher, but, at the time he wrote the song, was unsaved. "That’s one of my favorite songs in the world," she said. "When my son wrote the song "Without Him", he was not a Christian. It was after that time that he found the Lord. Now, he flies all over the world and sings and preaches the Gospel."
    Of old hymns, one of her favorites is "I Must Tell Jesus."
    "When I was a little girl, I learned to name all of the books of the Bible," she said. "For many years, John 3:16 was my favorite of all the verses in the Bible. Since then, I’ve had others that I’ve turned to, but that was my favorite in the beginning, and it has stayed with me all of my life."

                  Eva Mae sings and plays piano with The LeFevres


    She became a Christian at an early age. "I was about eight years old when I went to an old-fashioned altar and gave my heart to the Lord," she said. "That was the greatest decision I ever made in my life. Giving my heart and my soul and my life to the Lord while I was young was the most important step I’ve ever taken in my life.
    "The Lord has given me the strength to go through every trial I’ve ever faced," she said. 
    Her husband and her mother passed away in 1979. 
    Her oldest son, Pierce, passed away at the age of 48, and her oldest daughter, Andrea, died at the age of 62. "I’ve got three children left, thank the Lord," she said, "two boys and a girl." Her youngest daughter, Monteia, at the age of 53, has never spoken a word and is cared for 24 hours a day. "She is the joy of my life," she said. "When I would have a ‘pity party’ with Eva Mae, just living in her little world awhile, and experiencing the love and joy and happiness she knows and shares means everything."
    Her father died at the age of 103 in 2001. "I tended to him and cared for him the last six months of his life," she said. 
    "The Lord helped me through everything. I could still go on stage and smile and sing about the love of God and my determination to go to heaven. I don’t know what I would have done without the Lord. I wonder what people do who don’t know the Lord and don’t talk to Him and don’t expect His goodness. I wonder how they get through life, because it was through my faith that I got through every trial and that I’m where I am today."
    When asked what gives her the determination to keep singing at the age of 90, she answered, "I’ve come too far to look back," referring to the LeFevres’ song "I’ve Come Too Far to Look Back." "It’s not how you start out in life," she said. "It’s how you end up. And, since we don’t know when our time is up, since death could come within the next 30 seconds, we need to stay prepared, and that means living close to the Lord."
    She no longer plays the piano as she once did. "I had a very bad spell of sickness about 12 years ago," she said. "The doctors never knew what it was; they say that it wasn’t a stroke. But I had to learn to write my name again. The rhythm of the music, the timing, was all gone. I never have gotten it back. I can still play slow songs like "Amazing Grace", but I can’t play fast songs. People loved my playing because I could play fast. That’s the way I won the people, but I could no longer do that. I don’t worry about it. I go to churches and tell the story of my life and sing."
    She is accompanied by a professional pianist, Mark Fuller, who is also the pianist for Central Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia. "I am so blessed that he would help me in my work for the Lord," said Eva Mae. 

      

                            Eva Mae turned 90 on August 7, 2007. 


    Blessed is how Eva Mae describes her life, blessed for having been born to Christian parents, blessed for having been born in the United States, which she calls the greatest country on earth, blessed with 11 grandchildren and several great grandchildren. 
    "It’s been a life of being blessed by the Lord, in little ways and big ways," she said. "I think that I was anointed from my mother’s womb to do what I’ve done all of my life. When you feel you’re in God’s will, that’s such a wonderful place to be."
    Eva Mae has been inducted into the Gospel Music Association’s Gospel Music Hall of Fame and was the first Gospel singer inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
    "The longer I know Him, the better I can serve Him," she said. "The closer I stay to the Lord, and the farthest away I can get from this world and all of its temptations, the better I can serve Him. 
    "It pays to stay close to the Lord. Sometimes, we follow Him afar off. We claim to be Christians, but to say you’re a Christian means you’re Christ-like. We’re sinners saved by grace, so, at times, we sin, or follow the Lord afar off. We need to stay close to Him. It’s a more joyous life, a happier life, the closer you live to the Lord."
    To someone who does not know the Lord, she would say, "Come to the Lord, just as you are, no matter what sin you have committed. It may be the worst thing on this earth that we can think of, but the Lord still loves us, and He’ll forgive us.
    "One thing I pray every day is, ‘Lord, keep me humble and help me always to forgive.’ If we don’t forgive, He won’t forgive us.
    "I want to be remembered as somebody who always tried to smile," she said. 
    "And I would like to be remembered by the phrase, ‘When I go to heaven, I want to take somebody with me.’"