The invitation came to visit Alana Woolley's house and look over her book collection. Obviously this highly-educated and well-read woman had surrounded herself with good books. There were Bible helps, literature, history, mathematics, scientific theory, spiritual growth, women's studies, and books on the craft of writing. No dusty, moldy tomes. New books. The best in every field. Books proudly wrapped in their dust jackets. Books with little stickers to mark their owner's favorite passages.
The library reflected its owner's organization. Books left in their proper place just waiting the next time their owner's fingers would slip them from the shelf. The computer was ready for work. The desk lamp was ready to burn. The chess set awaited a challenge.
It was Christmastide and several vans passed by with trees tied to their tops. The rush of the season was calling for decorating trees, stringing lights, wrapping packages. Usually this time of the year Alana was busy shopping for her nieces and nephews, the younger generation which were her “special people.” Usually there would be Christmas cards to send. There would be the glorious music at her church, River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond where Handel's Messiah would be performed.
There was no wreath on her door this Christmas. Six months earlier, in July 2004, Alana Joy Woolley, at a still young 51, had died. Whatever dust had settled on her books was only because their owner was no longer present.
Now her parents, George and Imogene Woolley of Tuscaloosa, Ala., had the heavy task of closing their daughter's home. “When she became ill, I asked her if she wanted us to take her home where we could care for her,” said her mother with an accent dripping with magnolias. “ ‘No, I am already at home,' was Alana's reply.”
After 23 years, Richmond claimed her heart. A job offer came in the spring of 1981 to work in the computer support area of the Foreign Mission Board; and in two weeks time the parents had their daughter settled in Richmond. “We told her that was what the Lord was leading her to all those years,” said her mother.
Imogene Woolley has been a part of Hopewell Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa since she was 9 years old, and George, a tall and stately man, joined Hopewell after they were married. She surmises that George has done “about everything a man could do” at the church: chairman of the deacons, Sunday school superintendent. He “headed up” a bond drive to build “the new auditorium” in 1962.
Hopewell provided a nurturing family for the Woolley children: Herschel, Beth and Alana. “She and her sister were both active in all the missions organizations. Beth led Alana into it because she was so interested in missions. Alana went from Sunbeams to GAs, passed every step in the GAs and went on to YWAs. She did it all,” said the proud mother. “I still have her scepter from GAs.”
Alana served twice as a summer missionary with the Home Mission Board. At Samford University, she majored in math and worked in the computer lab. She enrolled at Southern Seminary. Imogene believes her daughter “knew the Lord was leading her to something, but she did not know exactly what path and probably thought it was religious education.”
“Even as a GA she felt led and once went forward in church to give herself to missions.
“She began teaching computers to servicemen returning from Vietnam. All of this was preparatory to the work she eventually had at the FMB. She still felt called to foreign missions, but the FMB required two years in Christian vocation before they would appoint you and everything she had done was volunteer work. She came back to her home church and volunteered to be the youth director and was employed in the computer area of a local bank.”
Bob Covington was serving as interim pastor at the church. A missionary himself, he was recruiting for the FMB and learned that the headquarters needed a computer technician. “Bob told the personnel manager about Alana, that she felt led to missions in some area but she was in the computer field and maybe the Lord is preparing her for this.”
Once in Richmond, Alana became actively engaged in River Road. She became a deacon, teacher and chairperson of the board of Christian education. Her pastor, Jim Slatton, became a mentor. He remembers: “Her quandary was that she had a sense of call and theological education and, therefore, what should she do with it; and I encouraged her to see herself as a called person with gifts clearly along the line of computer work. She was pursuing her call in that venue and became open to whatever opportunities would come her way. She was a consummate church person who was there every Sunday, cheerfully willing to take any responsibility offered her.”
On the cake at her ordination reception, on one side was the word, “Trained,” and on the other, “And Now Ordained.”
It has been a rough Christmas for her parents. Without their faith, it would have been dark indeed. Alana's death came a year-and-a-half after the passing of their other daughter, Beth. For the Christian, life is a continuum. Like the Christmas wreath, it has no ending. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He can be reached at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.