Mary Lou Jordan Whiddon, 96, of Tifton died Thursday, March 10, 2011, at her residence. Funeral services will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 12, 2011, at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Chula. Rev. Larry Layfield will officiate with burial to follow in Mount Zion Baptist Church Cemetery in Chula. Joshua Ryan Woods, Robert Eston Jordan, William Hamilton Jordan, David Benson Jordan, Joel Goodwin and Darrell Woods will serve as pallbearers. Honorary pallbearers will be the deacons of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Chula. The family will receive friends on Friday, March 11, 2011, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Bowen-Donaldson Home for Funerals.
Mrs. Whiddon was born on July 29, 1914 in Berrien County and was the daughter of William Taylor Jordan and Lula Merniva Hardeman Jordan, both deceased. She was also preceded in death by her husband, Roswell Lee Whiddon, to whom she was married for 50 years; seven brothers, James W. Jordan, O. L. Jordan, Rudolph Jordan, Huey Jordan, Milton Jordan, Eston Jordan and Lewis “Buddy” Jordan; and five sisters, Alice Boling, Edna Linxwiler Girod, Mable Easter Jordan, Myrtle Jordan and Mildred Mable Jordan. She was a homemaker and former secretary at the Tift County Courthouse. She was a long-time member of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Chula and a member of the Home Demonstration Club. She enjoyed sewing, working in her yard with her flowers and she spent her life caring for her family and friends. She was also a great cook and lived her entire life in Tift County.
Mrs. Whiddon is survived by one son, Donald Gerald Whiddon of Tifton; two daughters and one son-in-law, Barbara Jean and Carl Goodwin of Tifton and Melba Lou Whiddon of Tifton; one sister, Annie Pauline “Polly” Jordan Holton of Gainesville, Florida; two sisters-in-law, Mildred Stuckey Jordan of Jacksonville, Florida and Grace Kennedy Jordan of Starke, Florida; two grandchildren and their spouses, Sonya Carilisa Goodwin Woods and her husband, Darrell Kenneth Woods, of Tifton and Joel Dee Goodwin and his wife, Kristin Nease Goodwin of Savannah; five great-grandchildren, Heather Alanna Woods Tawzer, Joshua Ryan Woods, Hannah Kelsey Woods, all of Tifton and Abigail Madison Goodwin and Hunter Colby Goodwin, both of Savannah; one great-great grandchild, Westley Payton Tawzer of Tifton; several nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews.