Mrs Carter, who was 96, died in Marsden Grange Residential Home, Nelson, and her funeral will be held at the town's Woodlands Road Baptist Church at 11 a.m. on Monday.

Woodlands Road is the church where her late husband, Pastor William George Carter, known as Bill, was minister and will always be linked with the couple.

Mrs Carter was born at the Friends' Meeting House, Brierfield, and raised as a Quaker, but, as she grew up, felt the pull of the Salvation Army, training to be a captain at the William Booth Memorial College, London. Through the Salvation Army, she met her future husband - both were captains and they married at the Nelson Citadel in 1939 and had two daughters, Judith and Jennifer.

Following the war, Mr Carter became a Baptist minister, his first church being in Keighley. The couple returned to the Nelson area in 1957 and started their long assocation with Woodlands Road Baptist Church.

For the last 40 years, Mrs Carter lived in the Barkerhouse Road area.
In the 1960s, she became a resident warden for the old people's complex at Williams Place, Nelson, run by Nelson Council and she and her husband lived on site.

At the same time, Mrs Carter pursued her work as a deacon, president of the women's organisation and as a speaker at other churches.

Her daughter, Mrs Judith Drury, said: "My mother loved life. She was full of fun and always had a smile. She was very good with people, kind and considerate and very tactful when anything needed her gentle touch to sort it out."

Mrs Carter's family is asking for donations or flowers for Nelson Baptist Church. The funeral service will be followed by cremation at Burnley.