BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Louisiana native Marjorie Jones McCullough, former missionary and national WMU president, died March 18 following a lengthy illness. She was 81. Her funeral was March 25 in Alexandria, La.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Louisiana native Marjorie Jones
McCullough, former missionary and national WMU president, died March 18
following a lengthy illness. She was 81. Her funeral was March 25 in
Alexandria, La.
McCullough was a visionary leader who served on all
levels of WMU, including the office of national president from 1986
until 1991, WMU leaders said. “Marjorie was an outstanding, strong
leader who was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the future of
WMU,” said Wanda S. Lee, executive director-treasurer.
Born in Louisiana in 1924, McCullough grew up participating in WMU
children’s organizations and developed a heart for missions at an early
age.
After graduating from Louisiana College in
Pine-ville, La., and earning a master’s degree in religious education
at the WMU Training School in Louisville, Ky., she worked in both
the Kentucky and Louisiana WMU offices. She served in Nigeria and
Ghana before being called to the national WMU staff, where she helped
to create and name Acteens and Girls in Action (previously Girls’
Auxiliary) organizations and wrote the manual and handbook for Acteens.
Later, she returned to the mission field, this time
to Brazil, where she served five years before reconnecting with an old
friend, Glendon McCullough, executive secretary of the Brotherhood
Commission. They were married four years when he died.
In 1980 she was elected president of Tennessee WMU.