MOUNT VERNON, Va. — Jean Nelson Woodward, 88, died Jan. 7 in a hospice care center in Northern Virginia.
For the past nine years she was a resident of Sunrise in Mount Vernon, Va.
Woodward |
Woodward was president of Woman’s Missionary Union of Virginia from 1983-1988, and during her term, the organization built its CrossRoads Camp and Conference Center. In 1988 she was elected president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, the second woman to hold the office.
Her husband, Robert Woodward, had served as president of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware and the Woodwards are believed to be the only couple to serve as presidents of state Baptist conventions.
Born in Detroit, she attended Wheaton College where she met her husband. They married in 1945 and spent most of their life in Maryland and Virginia, where her husband was a pastor in Princess Anne and Frederick, Md., and Winchester, Va., where he was pastor of First Baptist Church. Following his retirement in 1986, they moved to Richmond. Robert died in 2001.
Woodward had served on the board of directors of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and held an honorary doctorate from the University of Richmond.
She was a member of River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond where a memorial service will be held on Jan. 16 at 1 p.m. She is survived by four children.