WEAVER, Bettie Woodson, passed away June 14, 2018, at her daughter's home in Powhatan. She was born January 5, 1920, in Crewe, Virginia. She was preceded in death by her husband, Albert Faulkner Weaver; her parents, Thomas Callen Woodson and Bettie Haskins Winfree Woodson; her brothers, Thomas Winfree Woodson, John Watlington Woodson, and Robert Callen Woodson. She is survived by her daughter, Bettie Haskins Weaver Brandt and her husband Lamar; son, George Faulkner Weaver; her grandchildren and their mother, Charlotte Faulkner Weaver, Ross Woodson Weaver, and Patti Ross Weaver; three nieces, Dorothy Bommelaere and Elizabeth Varsa of Albuquerque, NM, and Winifred Woodson Stribling of Alamo, CA; and one nephew, Robert Callen Woodson of Garden Ridge, TX. After her father's death in 1928, Bettie lived with her mother and maternal grandparents, the Rev. Robert Henry Winfree and his wife Maria Pocahontas Watlington Winfree, at Aetna Hill in Midlothian, and later in Richmond, where she graduated from John Marshall High School in 1937. She attended Westhampton College 1938-1941, where she met her husband, Albert F. Weaver, in Boatwright Memorial Library. After graduating from Westhampton College with her degree in French, Bettie taught at Manchester High School, 1941-1943. She and Albert were married on September 27, 1943, at Bethel Baptist Church in Midlothian. During the war Bettie and Albert lived in Fayetteville, NC, Brownwood, TX, Lawton, OK, and Cecelia, KY. Following Albert's work with the occupation forces in Kobe and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1946 they moved to Aetna Hill in Midlothian, where, over the next three years, they added electricity, heating, and indoor plumbing to the old home. Bettie taught at Midlothian High School from 1946 to 1951. In 1957, she made a survey of old houses, churches, and other buildings in Chesterfield County for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) project, as she honed her knowledge of early vernacular architecture. That year she was commissioned by the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors to write Chesterfield County, Virginia, which she updated in 1970. After their children Betsy and George were school age, she returned to teaching fourth grade at old Midlothian High School until 1966, when J. B. Watkins Elementary School was built nearby. Here she taught fourth grade until her retirement in 1981. Throughout her busy teaching career at Watkins, Bettie maintained her many varied interests in local and state history, architecture of old homes, local coal mining history, antiques, gardening, genealogy, nature, conservation, ornithology, religious freedom, research, and writing. At this time she wrote several articles for the Virginia Cavalcade and the Instructor. Her article, "History in Towns: Midlothian, Virginia," published in The Magazine Antiques, described the perils Midlothian faced from the first proposed pathway of route 288 that threatened to obliterate the village. Inspired by her love for the environment, Bettie brought the natural world inside the classroom through her unique, creative curricular mix of history, science, art, reading, spelling, and math--spiced up with her characteristic dash of common sense, kindness, manners, and morals. Her students remember gathering by their classroom windows to watch birds at the bird feeders and to record bird species by date, bird identification guides at hand. Bettie led the Watkins fourth graders on countless field trips to the nearby Grove Shaft coal mine ruins; parents, students, and fellow teachers recall how they huffed and puffed to keep up with her energetic pace. Here, she integrated local history, the natural environment, early industry, architecture, and respect for private property: her students knew that each year she wrote a letter to the property owner asking permission to bring students onto his land. She served as co-chairman of the Chesterfield County United States Bicentennial Committee, 1976-1981, and, working with the Chesterfield County Historical Society during this time, was instrumental in the planning, design, and development of the Chesterfield County Museum and of Magnolia Grange. In 1980 she researched and published The Continental Training Depot and General Rendez-Vous at Chesterfield Courthouse, Virginia: 1780-1781. After updating the text and its roster of militia officers, she reprinted the book in 2007 as a project commemorating the Jamestown tricentennial. Bettie was authorized in 1981 by the Chesterfield County School Board to write History and Geography of Chesterfield County, Virginia, an indexed and illustrated social studies textbook that would be used by Chesterfield's 4th graders and their teachers for nearly a decade. Upon her retirement from teaching, Bettie served as President of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and as President of the Chesterfield Retired Teachers Association. She was a past Regent of the Bermuda Hundred Chapter, NSDAR, and, until her death, served as the chapter's Conservation Chair. Bettie taught an adult Sunday School class at Winfree Memorial Baptist Church for many years. Her passion for the story of religious freedom in Virginia led to her writing Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Baptists in 1993, published by the Virginia Baptist Historical Society. Bettie published Midlothian: Highlights of Its History in 1994, reprinting it in 1996 and 1998. In 2002 she wrote Winfree Memorial Baptist Church, 1852-2002: 150 Years of Reaching Out. Bettie researched and provided texts for four local Virginia historical highway markers and most recently published an article in 2013 about Trabue's Tavern in the American Spirit Magazine. Bettie was a member of the Jamestowne Society, the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Huguenot Society of the Founders of Manakin in the Colony of Virginia, and the National Society of the Washington Family Descendants. She was an avid conservationist and bird watcher whose legacies of creativity and compassion for others remain in the hearts of her students and of those who knew her. Bettie was a beloved lifetime member of Winfree Memorial Baptist Church, where a memorial service will be conducted at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. A private inurnment will take place at a later date. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Winfree Memorial Baptist Church building fund. Whenever you see a bluebird, think of Bettie.
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