Nadene Stockard

February 15, 1916 – October 12, 2013

She was always the nicest person in the room. Warm and welcoming. Interested in hearing your story before telling her own. Eager to help if she possibly could. Always convinced that each person she met was capable of accomplishing good works. What most people never found out because of her modesty was that she was also frequently the smartest person in the room. A Latin scholar early in her life, and a lover of learning for all of her 97 years, Nadene Stockard came to the end of a rich and wonderfully full life on October 12, 2013.

Nadene was born in Norman, Oklahoma, but she considered herself a Texan, since her family relocated to the Lone Star state when she was a baby. She grew up in the small Texas town of Mineral Wells, and often recalled the community spirit of that town pulling together during the Great Depression. There, Nadene learned about hosting a busy and family-centered home early on from her beloved mother, “Aunt Lillie” and her brick-crafting father, A.B. Johns. She was the second of six children and took early to the joint ideals of learning and home-making. She loved school and was the three-time Texas Latin Champion while in high school. She continued that quest for knowledge at Mary Hardin-Baylor, becoming the first in her family to graduate from college.

It was natural for a woman who enjoyed education to take up teaching in the 1930s, and Nadene landed a job in the English Department at the high school in Liberty Hill, Texas. Looking for a place to stay in town, she was directed to a rooming house that catered to teachers. She arrived to find the new young Business teacher already negotiating for a room at the same place. She thought he was a real gentleman when he offered to let her have the nicest room, even though he had been there first. A romance developed and two years later, James Goodman Stockard, who had moved to Washington, DC to work for the federal government, asked her to join him. They were married at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church by Peter Marshall, the Chaplain of the Senate, on February 10, 1940.

The couple soon moved to Arlington, Virginia, and set up housekeeping. Three children soon arrived and Nadene gave herself over to creating the same warm, welcoming home she had known in her youth. Her children were encouraged to invite their friends over for play or dinner or parties. She entertained neighborhood and church friends regularly. Education was always at the core of her interests. She was very active in the PTA and in the classrooms of her children. She typed the elementary school newspaper written by the students. She made costumes for the school plays. She chaperoned the field trips. And she encouraged her children to go beyond simply completing their homework assignments to find out new information about whatever they were working on.

Later, by the strength of her convictions she became an activist in the struggle to integrate the Arlington public schools after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court. Despite considerable opposition and even threats to her family, she played a leading role in political campaigns and worked with parents and school officials to accomplish this important change in the educational system of Arlington County.

As her children reached their teens, Nadene took up her next career, still focusing on education but on a larger stage. She went to work for the United States Agency for International Development, a branch of the State Department at the time. She had a twenty-year career as an official in the AID Office of International Training. In that role, she planned US public health training for physicians and other health-care workers who were citizens of developing nations around the world. These were programs that did not exist in their own countries that would allow them to study and then return and contribute to the health and growth of their nations. She was the face of the United States for a generation of these emerging leaders in public health. The thank-you notes and greeting cards in her boxes of keepsakes are testimony to the graciousness and encouragement with which she played that role.

This work required a great deal of travel. Raised in a small Texas town, she never dreamed that life would take her to Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, among other nations. She felt a special connection to both Nepal and Mali, and lived briefly in Iran where her husband served with the United Nations. She truly loved her travels, as a chance to learn new cultures and histories and to meet new people with widely different experiences from her own. “Mother’s career was a major influence in my becoming interested in working on international development,” says her daughter, Janet.

An avid reader all her life, her apartment is still filled with many volumes of historical novels, cultural non-fiction and her guilty pleasure – mysteries. After her retirement, she turned to a strong interest in antiques. She built a very significant collection of antique glass and perfume bottles. While she enjoyed the beauty of the objects she gathered, she was also interested in what they represented in craft, culture and the art and history of their period. She became an expert in these matters and wrote and lectured on the topic.

Through all of this busy and diverse life, Nadene kept her focus on her family. While her children were still in school, she created, edited and wrote a Family Newsletter for her large extended family. When her children began to have their own children, she thought up the idea of selling a small cottage the family owned in the Shenandoah and “endowing” a Family Reunion Fund. Every year for over 30 years, Nadene and Goodman were surrounded by their three children and many grandchildren, in locations where they could play, enjoy each other’s company, and catch up on everything that had happened for the last year. Daughter Ruth says, “Mom’s focus on family was so strong – she wanted us to be the best we could be at what we wanted to be.”

Nadene Stockard’s full life is complete. But her influence flows through the lives of all those she has touched – her children and grandchildren, her friends, the legion of professionals around the world who have been welcomed and encouraged by her, and those who have been touched by her many volunteer activities. Son Jim says, “A world full of people just like my mother would be a peaceful, engaging, accepting and generous world. . .but she wouldn’t be satisfied because it wouldn’t have the diversity she loved so much.”

Nadene was sustained late in her life by the help of Marleny Rivera, Lianna Echevierra, and Elda Flores, who made it possible for her to live out her days in her home. The family is enormously grateful for the care and love they gave her. Nadene’s beloved husband of 62 years, James Goodman, predeceased her in 2002. She is survived by her three children, Janet de Merode of Alexandria and her husband Louis; Ruth Flynn of Charleston, SC; and Jim, Jr. of Cambridge, MA and his wife Susan; by 10 grandchildren and by 16 great-grandchildren.