Reverend Asa Dorsey suffered a heart attack on Christmas Eve, 2008. He was rushed to North Georgia Medical Center.

He faced his final days here as he had always lived, surrounded by family, with faith and at peace.

He passed quietly from this earth in the morning hours of January 2nd, 2009. He was 93.

Visitations will be held Saturday, January 3rd from 12pm to 4pm and from 6pm to 9pm at Barnett Funeral Home in Cleveland, Geogia. Funeral services will follow on Sunday, at 3:00pm at Union Grove Congregational Holiness Church.

His children and grandchildren ask simply that everyone who knew Reverend Dorsey celebrate his life and honor his memory by living in the Word, and by loving each other as Christ showed us we could.

For over 70 years, the Reverend Asa Dorsey has been a figure of inspiration and comfort to those living in the farming communities and small towns that dot Northeastern Georgia from the steep, dark hills and hollows of the Appalachians in the north to the rolling green pastures where the land settles down, following the Chattahoochee river winding its way south.

When he retired a few years ago, Reverend Dorsey had performed more than 1,700 funerals and nearly as many weddings and baptisms in his 70 plus year ministry. But more important, he has touched the lives of thousands, usually when they needed it most.

He has also created a body of work in the form of thousands of hours of sermons and lessons. Renowned for his total recall of the Bible, he has always preached the Word as a living text from which he could pull line and verse at will.

Born on September 22, 1915, he grew up the seventh of nine children working his fathers White County farm. He received the calling at 16. When he was 20, he married 18-year-old Annie Kate Palmer. They had nine children and had a 62 year marriage that everyone agrees was one of mutual love and honor.

He preached at summertime camp meetings and revivals throughout Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and North and South Carolina. He and Watson Sorrow, founder of the Congregational Holiness Church, had a tent and they traveled into several states, going as far away as Michigan.

In addition, he pastured at several churches in White and Hall counties, and built the brick church that now is at Union Grove (Holiness Church).