Marjorie McCulloughMarjorie Jones McCullough, former missionary and national WMU president, died March 18 following a lengthy illness. She was 81.
McCullough was a visionary leader who served on all levels of WMU, including the office of national president from 1986 until 1991.
“Marjorie was an outstanding, strong leader who was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the future of WMU,” stated Wanda Lee, executive director-treasurer of national WMU. “As a former missionary, state WMU president, and national WMU’s GA director, she brought a great depth of experience and knowledge to the office of national WMU president.”
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 Pineville, 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. In 1955, she followed God’s leading to the missions field and served in Nigeria through the Foreign Mission Board. After six months of language study there, she served for another seven years as Ghana’s first WMU director.
In 1964, Alma Hunt, then WMU executive secretary, invited McCullough to join the staff of national WMU in Birmingham, Ala., as the general director of Girls’ Auxiliary. In that role, she helped to create and name Acteens and Girls in Action (previously Girls’ Auxiliary) organizations and wrote the manual and handbook for Acteens.
Several years later, in 1969, McCullough returned to the missions field and served in Brazil under appointment of the Foreign Mission Board once again. After five years of missionary work in Brazil, she attended the 1973 WMU Annual Meeting in Portland, Ore., while on furlough, where she reconnected with an old friend, Glendon McCullough, executive secretary of the Brotherhood Commission.
Glendon McCullough, a widower and father of four, and Marjorie Jones were married in 1974 in the Georgia Governor’s mansion where Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, longtime friends of the McCulloughs, and the four McCullough children were witnesses.
After four short years of marriage, a tragic automobile accident in 1978 took Glendon McCullough’s life. At their request, Marjorie McCullough later adopted all four children, and saw them through college and marriage.
In 1980 she was elected president of Tennessee WMU, and in 1984 served as interim executive director for Tennessee WMU.