Roxie A. Remley

Roxie A. Remley, age 99, died Friday January 25, 2019 at the Ogeechee Area Hospice House. She was born October 2, 1919 at the Remley Home place near Darlington, Indiana and her parents were John E. and Helen Elmira Lynch Remley. At age 11 she was baptized at the Methodist Church in Darlington, Indiana by Rev. Kuonem. Roxie graduated from Darlington High School in 1937, attended Business College and worked in Racine, Wisconsin, where she lived with her brother and his family. In August 1942, she volunteered into the newly organized Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), graduating from Officer Candidate School at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, January 23, 1943.

Roxie’s first assignment Feb. 1, 1943 was Top Secret: An experiment in training women to operate radar equipment that controlled guns operated by enlisted men---a first for women in U.S. military to relieve enlisted men for combat duty. That February, Captain Georgia B. Watson brought 56 enlisted women to learn radar operations at Battery X at Camp Simms near Washington, DC, where they lived in WAAC barracks. The women’s job was to protect the East Coast, Maine to Florida from invasion. In August 1943, the experiment ended successfully, and the unit disbanded.

In April 1944, Roxie volunteered for overseas duty as a First Lieutenant to Cheltenham, England assigned to a WAC Detachment Headquarters Service of Supply. In October after D-Day, June 6, 1944, she was transferred to the London WAC Detachment until the War ended in August, 1945. By late May of that year, the Queen of England visited Roxie’s Unit on Upper Grosner Street in London.

She returned home to Crawfordsville, Ind. In Nov. 1945 and was separated from service at Fort Des Moines, Iowa Jan. 3, 1946 as a Captain.

With a lifelong interest in the Arts that began in 3rd grade with drawing and painting, she entered Peabody College in Nashville, Tenn. In 1946. She graduated in 1949 with a BA and MA degrees in Art Education and began teaching Art in Nashville public schools. While looking for summer work in 1950, she found a job teaching Art at what was then Georgia Teachers’ College in Statesboro, soon to become Georgia Southern College. Roxie was instrumental in developing the Department of Art along with artist Frieda Gernant, who had taught electives in art for years.

While teaching, Roxie exhibited in dozens of juried shows throughout the South and Midwest. By 1962 she had earned the Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Pratt School of Art in New York. In later years she attended summer sessions at Herron School of Art in Indianapolis and Kennedy Scholl of Art in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She was an active member of local, state, regional, and national art associations.

She retired from teaching at Georgia Southern College in 1976, Emerita Professor of Art. In 2009, the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art at Georgia Southern University celebrated Roxie’s 90th birthday with an exhibition of her recent paintings. In 2011, at age 92, she was inducted into the Averitt Center for the Arts as a Legend in the Arts, joining the ranks of Emma Kelly, Michael Braz, and Blind Willie McTell.

Roxie received the Deen Day Smith Service to Mankind Award from the Statesboro Herald, the Betty Foy Sanders Patron of the Arts Award, and the Quiet Disciple Award from the Statesboro First United Methodist Women. In the 1950s at Statesboro First Methodist Church, she served as a local adviser for the stained glass windows designed by artist Roy Calligan for the church.

In addition to her membership at First Methodist, Roxie held life membership in the Statesboro Regional Art Association, Daughters of the American Colonists, Scottish Heritage Society, Bulloch County Historical Society of Statesboro and Montgomery County, Historical Society of Crawfordsville, Ind. As an expansion of the Averitt Center for the Arts in Downtown Statesboro, a building bearing her name was opened in June 2016, The Roxie Remley Center for Fine Arts.

Roxie was predeceased by her brothers and their wives, James Lynch and Ruth Carson Remley, John Hughson and Mary Allison Remley; a nephew and his wife, James Robert and Susan Graham Remley and a great niece Susan Hodgin Nelson.

She is survived by nieces Mary Kathleen Remley of Sebastopol, CA and Jane Remley Hodgin (P.T.Hodgin , MD) of Indianapolis; great-niece Audra Hodgin Reschly (Brian) of Houston, TX; great-nephews Jason B. Remley of Chicago and Luke Hodgin (Sarah) of Indianapolis; great-great nieces Remley Reschly, Margaret Reschly, Anna Roxanne Nelson, Rylie Mae Hodgin, and Nora Hodgin and great-great-nephew Gavin Hodgin.

Memorial services will be held Sunday February 3, 2019, 2:00pm at the Statesboro First United Methodist Church with Rev. Jimmy Cason officiating.

A reception/visitation will be held immediately following the service until 4:30pm at the Roxie Remley Center for Fine Arts on Vine Street in Statesboro, Ga.

Graveside services will be held at Oak Hill Cemetery, Crawfordsville, Indiana at a later date.

Contributions may be made to the Roxie Remley MFA Scholarship fund, Georgia Southern University, PO Box 8053, Statesboro, Ga. 30460; the Roxie Remley Center for Fine Arts, Averitt Center for the Arts, 33 East Main Street, Statesboro, Ga. 30458; Statesboro 1st United Methodist Church PO Box 2048, Statesboro, Ga. 30459; or Darlington United Methodist Church, 201 W. Harrison St., Darlington, IN 47940.

Hodges-Moore Funeral Home and Curt Deal Funeral Director of Statesboro, Ga., is in charge of arrangements.

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