Nellie Mae Townes was born in Nansemond County, known today as Suffolk, Virginia, to Mrs. Josephine Townes Warren.  She is the oldest of five siblings.

Mother Townes graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in 1969 with honorable mention.  She has one daughter and one grandson.

At the age of twenty-three, she accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.  She became a member of the Mt. Lebanon Church Of God In Christ, under the leadership of the late Elder Junius L. Clifton. She is currently still a member of Mt. Lebanon under its current pastor, Superintendent Larry Gray.

Mother Townes was licensed in 1977 as a Missionary by her mentor, the late Mother Thelma Geraldine Vaughan.  She has served in many capacities in the local, district and jurisdictional work.

In her local church, she has served in the church choir for twenty two years. She worked as an usher for ten years. For more than thirty three years Mother Townes worked faithfully with the Pastors Aide, being a blessing to her pastor. She is a Noon Day Prayer Leader and currently serves as the Church Secretary and Announcer.

On the district level, Mother was the Central District’s Sunday School Secretary for ten years and YPWW Secretary for fifteen years.  She served in the District Choir for fifteen years. Also for fifteen years, she elevated and expanded the work of the Women’s Department of the Central District serving faithfully as the District Missionary.

In the First Jurisdiction, Mother Townes has been a member of the Jurisdictional choir, being voted its President of the Jurisdictional Choir under the leadership of Brother Anthony Olds.  She was appointed by Mother Vaughan as the Second Assistant Jurisdictional Supervisor and served for three years in that position. At the designation of our Jurisdictional Prelate, Bishop Ted Thomas, Sr., Mother Townes was elevated to the position of Jurisdictional Supervisor in November, 2008.