Buckingham Notables: Judith Winfrey

Judith Catherine Winfrey. Courtesy Winfrey family.

Judith Winfrey of Buckingham County, died on December 5, 1915. Her obituary, written by T. W. Hart, was published in The Religious Herald. It extolls her contribution to her family and her community. Oddly, the obituary failed to state that she and her family were members of Sharon Baptist Church.

Mrs. George H. Winfrey

We are so accustomed to death that it far too seldom produces any deep and lasting impression on our minds. To the hearse, the coffin, the grave we give a hurried glance, a swift sad thought then rush on along our busy way so soon forgetting. But the death we mourn today has occasioned particular gloom. Seldom is it that one is taken from the paths of private life whose loss is more deeply or more generally felt.

Mrs. Winfrey [nee Judith C. Robertson,] a daughter of Elisha Robertson and his wife, Mary Maxey, was born in Buckingham county, Va., on July 14, 1838. She was baptized by the Rev. Joseph H. Fox October 1, 1854; was married to Mr. George Hill Winfrey December 23, 1856, and on December 5, 1915, she went away from us into the spirit world. Two sons and one daughter, all of whom were full-grown, preceded her. Her honored husband, more than three years her senior, with five sons and three daughters, fifty-three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, survive her.

Although for many years a sufferer, she not only performed well and faithfully the duties of wife and mother, but also held herself ready in times of sickness or distress to comfort and assist, soothe and sustain to the utmost of her power, throughout a large community. Her mission in life, as she conceived it, was to contribute to the life and well-being of others. With a heart sensitive and responsive to the lightest touch, in a manner which, like warm sunshine, dispelled darkness and gloom — she was a devoted wife, a tender and loving mother, a kind and sympathetic friend. Of marked and unusual force of character, of earnest piety, of unanswering loyalty to the Scriptures as the word of God, she strove to keep her heart and eyes on the Lord and to walking in His statutes. Her piety was intelligent, active, steadfast, its flames never flashed forth as if to burn and bewilder, and then die away; it was calm, uniform, perpetual.

By four of her sons and two of her grandsons her body was borne to its last resting place to await the bright and glorious resurrection, when “this mortal must put on immortality.

T. W. Hart

Well Water, VA

[From The Religious Herald of December 23rd 1915.]

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