Freddie Mae Woodliff

Freddie Mae Wilkinson Woodliff was born 3 October 1931 to Gorden and Lois Wilkinson in Port Arthur, Texas. Her childhood was spent here, where she got her grounding in the church and never wavered from her Christian path. She was the first of four girls, and she became a strong leader who worked her way through college, graduating from Baylor University. There in Waco she met Richard Neal “Bud” Woodliff, the love of her life, and married him in 1954. They had three children: Timothy Neal, Marla Renee, and Darla Beth.

Freddie mothered her children--and everybody else’s—while building a career in teaching and counseling in the Pasadena Independent School System for

over thirty years. Freddie never saw a baby she did not love on sight. After she was diagnosed with brittle diabetes, she took medical retirement. In spite of her own health, she heroically took care of Bud until he died of cancer on 16 October 1988.

For twenty-nine years after that death, her children all grown and married, she ran her household alone; but she was not idle. She led Bible study groups, attended church and Sunday school, sang in the choir, created costumes for church pageants, played the piano, taught piano lessons in her home and gave recitals for students, planned and hosted family celebrations for holidays, created gorgeous quilts for everyone she loved and handmade Christmas gifts for family and friends, and babysat her grandchildren and then great grandchildren. Through it all her sweet smile and gentle spirit impressed everyone who ever knew her with the shining light of Christ’s consciousness which radiated from her.

On 17 October 2017, one day after the twenty-ninth anniversary of her husband’s death, Freddie Woodliff suddenly and quietly departed to claim her promised place in God’s presence.

Freddie was preceded in death by her mother, father, husband, and youngest sister, Sharon Polk. She is survived by her two sisters, Dixie Wilkinson and Beth Sheridan and her husband, Jack; her children and their spouses: Tim and Cozette Woodliff, Marla and Rusty Broussard, and Beth and Lee Ward; six grandchildren: Lindsay Miller, Chat Woodliff, Jerrod and Justin Broussard, Abby Howell, and Carlee Gilley; and ten great grandchildren.