Frances Jean Woodworth slipped away from life in the early morning on Monday, July 7, 2023, following a downward slide from complications from pulmonary hypertension and atrial fibrillation.
Frances Jean Green was the daughter of Harold and Evelyn (Deal) Green and was born on Nov. 10, 1937, in their home in Ames, Iowa.
She attended Lincoln Elementary, Central Junior High and graduated from Ames High School. She went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in library science and elementary education from Iowa State Teachers’ College, now known as the University of Northern Iowa.
Her mother began taking young Fran to the Ames Public Library when it was discovered she could read at age 3. Fran became good friends with children’s librarian and when Fran was a rising eighth grader, that same librarian gave Fran her first job at the library.
After graduating from college, Fran came back to Ames and again began working for the Ames Public Library.
What began as an admiration of his sunflowers outside his father’s gas station turned into Fran’s married life with Lloyd “Scott” Woodworth on Aug. 20, 1961. They had four of their children while Scott finished his undergraduate degree in hospital administration at the University of Iowa and then his master’s degree in theology in Naperville, Illinois.
Scott was assigned his first church in the newly formed United Methodist Church with the Iowa Conference in 1968 at Dawson, Iowa. Their youngest daughter was born during that two-year stint.
Scott, Fran and the kids then served churches in Boone, New Sharon, Denison and Red Oak, collecting cats, dogs, hermit and fiddler crabs, a rabbit, a snake that laid eggs, a guinea pig and a tarantula named Fido along the way.
There was never a dull moment in those parsonages as all the children in the neighborhoods were welcomed by Fran as if they were her own. She was usually one of the first mothers to volunteer at whatever event one or more of her children were doing, and she drove “Mom’s Taxi,” a nine-passenger blue Chevy Impala station wagon, anywhere they all were going. It could even hold an entire softball team and all their gear!
Fran’s most cherished desire, however, started when she was in fourth grade and attended church camp. A missionary from Red Bird Mission in Kentucky came several years in a row to camp to tell tales of life in the mountains of Kentucky and to play folk music on her autoharp. Fran bought her own autoharp early in her adult life and all her kids learned to play it and many other instruments which filled their lives with a love for music that extends even to this day.
But that desire to work at Red Bird Mission was left unfulfilled until 1997, when she was 60 years old. Scott was assigned to the Beverly Church, the first building built at the mission in 1921, and Fran became the executive secretary to the executive director. Fran stayed in that position until 2019 and worked under several executive directors and even served as interim executive director for a short period.
She was known as the “Voice of Red Bird” because it was she who answered the phone for the main number. She also was the “Soup Label Lady” and the “Boxtop Lady” because she coordinated the organizing and shipping of thousands of labels, UPCs and product squares for the Campbell’s Labels for Education, Tyson A+ and Boxtops for Education programs that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Red Bird’s school and for the purchase of a van every year.
The only reason she left Red Bird Mission was due to a car accident that shattered both of her femurs just above the knees on Jan. 20, 2019. She playfully said that the car had the accident, she just went along for the ride.
After the accident, Fran spent several years in Tacoma, Washington, with Scott, two daughters and their families and then moved to North Carolina with her eldest daughter and her husband until her death, while Scott remains in a memory-care facility in Tacoma.
Fran loved reading, cooking, baking, crafting, Vacation Bible School, thoroughbred horse racing, telling folk stories, music of all kinds and doing anything that would put a smile on someone else’s face.
Fran is preceded in death by her parents; grandparents; brother, Paul; and brother-in-law, Clarence Clink; nephew, Michael Geurts; and niece, Amy Clink.
She is survived by her sisters, Donna Clink and Ellen (Marvin) Geurts; her five children and their spouses, Klay (Karen) Woodworth, Megan (Guido) Colucci, Molly (Mary) Hill-Woodworth, Katy (Karen Rosenzweig) Woodworth and Kari Edie; her eight grandchildren, Daniel and Arthur Woodworth, Marnie Hill-Woodworth, Macy, Calla and Ben Jordon and Lantana and Kate Edie; as well as cousins; in-laws; nephews; and nieces all across the country.
The family has requested that donations be made to Early Childhood Development at Red Bird Mission online, or mail checks to Red Bird Mission, 70 Queendale Ctr, Beverly, KY 40913, marked “Fran Woodworth Tribute.”
