Memories of Evelyn Poindexter
By Bruce Goodpasture
Some of the members of our
Mount
Olivet community move quietly and touch our lives in unexpected ways. The late Evelyn Poindexter – a long time member of
Mount
Olivet – was an example.
Whether she sat in her pew near the front of the sanctuary in the Sunday worship service, or did volunteer work in the church office, or attended Mac’s Sunday School Class, she was reserved. Few, if any, people knew Evelyn well. Some of us remember her as looking sad.
She lived with her late husband Bill at
1611 North Glebe Road. They had no children. One of their joys was country music and they often drove to music festivals in
West Virginia. Evelyn retired from a career in the Federal Government and Bill from construction work.
A highlight of Evelyn’s year was going to
Camp
Highroad on retreat with Mac’s Class. She enjoyed the food and playing bridge after dinner.
When Evelyn died in the summer of 1999, one friend remarked that she walked to a different drummer. Now it seems that the music she heard was that of love – love for God and for God’s church. We thank her for her generous bequest – more than $400,000. Her generous gift will help Mount Olivet witness to our community and the world even though she is no longer in her pew near the front of the sanctuary.
A Life Worthy of Imitation
Fran Maxwell, a member of
Mount
Olivet since 1960, died in March 2000. For the last eight years of her life she lived at the
Fairfax retirement community at
Fort
Belvoir and was able to travel to
Mount
Olivet only infrequently.
Fran’s life in many ways appears unremarkable. She was born in
Milwaukee in 1904, married an Army officer in 1931, and raised a son. In other ways, however, Fran’s life appears truly remarkable and worthy of close examination and imitation.
Those who knew Fran best knew her as a person with a gentle spirit and a generous heart. Mount Olivet’s Minister of Congregational Life Susan Cutshaw said that Fran “enriched my life each time I stepped into her presence, and she enriched the community of
Mount
Olivet through her witness as God’s disciple.”
By all outward appearances Fran lived modestly. Her house was a typical
Arlington redbrick rambler. The car she drove for the last decade or so she lived in
Arlington appeared to be middle-sized, middle-aged, and made in
America. The most remarkable thing about Fran’s house when viewed from the street or sidewalk was the bed of roses in her front yard. Each year Fran’s roses seemed to bloom earlier and to be more perfect than any other roses in the neighborhood.
Fran’s presence and service at
Mount
Olivet were evident to many in the congregation. In the years before she moved to
Fort
Belvoir, Fran worshiped at
Mount
Olivet nearly every Sunday and participated in Mac’s Class. During her earlier years at
Mount
Olivet, Fran worked in the church nursery and regularly told her family and friends that this was the highlight of her week. In later years she served as
Mount
Olivet’s Church School Secretary, diligently recording the attendance reports from each class.
Hidden from the view of all but a few in the church, however, was Fran’s remarkable commitment to financial stewardship. For years Fran was among the top financial supporters of
Mount
Olivet, and then in the last years of her life Fran did something that was unprecedented in the history of
Mount
Olivet
Church.
In late 1997, Fran established a Charitable Lead Trust that over a period of 15 years will provide to the church an estimated $1,000,000. This undoubtedly is the largest single gift ever made to
Mount
Olivet. This last gift of Fran’s is an extraordinary statement of her confidence in the work of God’s Church in the world. And of all the charitable organizations and all the good causes Fran chose
Mount
Olivet!
The way Fran lived her last days on Earth is also worthy of examination and imitation. Her son Lucky at the graveside service told those gathered of her last words. “A few minutes before she died, Fran asked her nurse to prop her up in bed, and she said, ‘Goodbye, Mary,’ who replied, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Fran said, ‘I am, I’m leaving soon; I’m going up there.’ She went back to sleep and quietly passed away, with her last words being a reaffirmation of her faith and her confidence in the life hereafter, and with happiness over the full life, the two wonderful husbands, and the family and friends who had blessed her throughout. She left this world as she had walked it, with faith, grace, dignity, and purpose. For her, dying was what came next, and she was eager to get on with it. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
