Obituary

Mrs. Mary Wright Moffat
November 19, 1909 - January 29, 2011

Mrs. Mary Wright Moffat, 101, of Huntington, WV, the wife of the late Dr. Charles Hill Moffat, died Saturday, January 29, 2011, with her entire beloved family at her bedside. Funeral services will be held 11 a.m. February 2, 2011 by Dr. Allen Reasons at the Fifth Ave. Baptist Church. Interment will follow in Woodmere Memorial Park. Visitation will be 4 untill 7 p.m. Tuesday, February 1, 2011 at Klingel Carpenter Mortuary. She was born in Liberty, Alabama on November 19, 1909, the oldest of two daughters born to Seldan Wright, a cotton planter, and his wife. Sally Martin Wright. She is survived by her daughter, Mary Moffat Jones, and son-in-law, Robert Clark Jones, two granddaughters, Amy Moffat Jones-Burdick and her husband Dr. Hoyt Burdick and their daughter, Anastasia, and Elizabeth Kate Jones and her daughters, Liza Kate and Mary Moffat, all of Huntington, West Virginia. Mrs. Moffat earned a Bachelors of Science degree cum laude from the Alabama College for Women. She studied at Columbia University in New York City on a fellowship and completed an internship in child development at Texas Tech University. She continued her studies at Marshall University and was inducted into the Kappa Omicron Phi honorary society. Mrs. Moffat enjoyed a long and distinguished career in education. She taught in public schools in Cabell County, West Virginia until her retirement from Huntington High School. She also taught in the Alabama public schools and at Anderson South Carolina Girls’ School. She was the director of the First Presbyterian kindergarden and pre-school program. Mrs. Moffat served as the president of the Marshall University Faculty Wives’ Club, charter member of the Phi Mu sorority chapter, president of the Alpha Chi Omega Mothers’ Club. She was also a member of the Woman’s Club of Huntington, American Association of University Women, Fifth Avenue Baptist Church and the Guyan Golf and Country Club. Dr. and Mrs. Moffat and their daughter, Mary, moved to Huntington, West Virginia in 1946 from Nashville, Tennessee, after Dr. Moffat earned his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. They resided in their home on Virginia Court for the next fifty years, until Dr. Moffat’s death. Mrs. Moffat then moved to the Woodlands Retirement Community, where she resided until her passing. She was beloved by all who knew her at the Woodlands. The Moffats were married on January 28, 1938, and shared 63 years of a marriage marked by love, devotion, loyalty, inspiration, motivation, and purpose. Huntington quickly became home to this couple from the deep South as they built their lives around Marshall University, education, Fifth Avenue Baptist Church and their many and varied community and professional activities. Mary Wright Moffat enriched the lives of the students she taught and everyone who came to know her. Although she experienced an amazing life a career, her greatest accomplishment was the care and love she gave her husband, three generations of women including her daughter, two granddaughters and three great-granddaughters, and her son-in-law. Truly, her family, like her students, were very blessed in life to learn from her the family treasures, her life and all she meant to them and gave to them. They love her dearly. Memorial Contributions may be made to The Dr. Charles Hill Moffat Visiting Lectureship in History, care of Marshall University.