Madge Chastain Hester

Madge was born in Cairo, Georgia, to Mack and Madge (LeGette) Chastain in 1952. While at Cairo High School, she met her future husband of 52 years, Dennis Hester. She also won the Miss Betty Crocker Award Contest, a feat that has provided decades of amusement for her loved ones, as Madge was many things, but most assuredly not a cook. 

After high school, Madge and Dennis attended the University of Georgia and were married in 1972. They moved to Albany after graduation in 1974. Their daughter, Kennedy, was born in 1983, and Madge proved to be the best possible mother. She and Kennedy were extremely close and spoke on the phone daily until Madge was no longer able.  

Madge loved going to the beach, shopping for shoes and sunglasses, trolling estate sales, and carrying on in a ridiculous fake Italian accent with her friend Sharon Jones. To say she loved horses would be an understatement—she was horse crazy.  She loved her Arabian horses, and made some of her best friends all over the country through horse showing. 

Dementia stole her golden years, but she was relentlessly loved and cared for by Dennis and her cadre of helpers, Lisa Smith, Tonya Porter, Linda King, and Sharon Scott. 

Madge is survived by her husband, Dennis, her daughter, Kennedy (Nick Hempfer), her terrible cat, Maggie May (“Baby”), and her two champion horses. In the extended family, she is survived by her close friends and cousins Margaret Tyson and Lola Brock of Cairo; her sister-in-law Vicky Chastain, Remlap, AL; nephews, James Howard Chastain (Sheri), Warrior, AL; John Hester (April) Cairo, GA; nieces, Heather Chastain Minniece (Thomas), Fultondale, AL; Victoria Chastain Hobby (James Matthew), Moody, AL; Vicki Davis, Cairo, GA; Alicia Lacy (Keith) Cairo, GA, and numerous other relatives in Cairo and Thomasville, GA.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her brothers, James Stewart Chastain and Howard Crawford Chastain (Vicky); brother-in-law Eugene Thomas “Tommy” Hester; father-in-law and mother-in-law, J. B. Hester and Olene Cassels Hester. 

Dennis and Kennedy will receive friends and family at Mathews Funeral Home on Wednesday, June 5, from 10:00 to 11:00 AM. 

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Phoebe Hospice, 320 Foundation Lane, Albany, GA, 31707.