Wilma Joy Dodson

Joy Dodson, 87, was born February 8, 1927 and died May 31, 2014. Wilma Joy Livingston was born and grew up in San Angelo, Texas, the daughter of Jess and Mamie Livingston. She was an active member of the First Christian Church and an avid tennis player. At an early age, she determined she wanted to be a missionary to Africa. Upon earning her B.A. degree in psychology and religion from Texas Christian University in 1948, Joy received a full scholarship to complete a Master of Science in Nursing at Yale University, since nursing was a vocation needed in Africa. Pursuing further studies in mission work, Joy met and married Rev. Dr. James Richard Dodson. Ordained to be a missionary by her home congregation, Rev. Joy Dodson served together with her husband, Dick Dodson, as missionaries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 1953-1964. Joy gave birth to three children, Janet, David, and Carol, on the equator in the Congo.

During the revolution leading to Congo independence, Joy took the three young children south across the border – refugees in what was northern Rhodesia. After their return to Elizabethville (Lubumbashi), Joy and Dick spent one year in San Angelo on furlough, and then a final two years as missionaries in the Congo. Upon returning to the U.S., Joy worked as a public health nurse in New York, as a school nurse at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, and later as a nursing instructor at Texas Southmost College. When Dick worked for the African-American Institute, the family returned to Africa, with one year in Tanzania and a year in the Ivory Coast. The family returned to the Congo (Zaire) when Dick served the US Agency for International Development. Joy worked as a nurse in the American Embassy medical unit. In 1979, the Dodsons moved to a farm in Brownsville, Texas. Joy retired in 1992. In 1993 at age 66, Joy volunteered with Church World Service to serve as a nurse in Somalia for six months, and lived in a UNHCR compound. Joy built, staffed, and supplied three village clinics during that time, despite frequent outbreaks of violence around her. When her Yale nursing class celebrated its 50 year reunion in 2001, Joy received a Distinguished Alumna award.

Preceded by her husband, she is survived by her brother James (wife Lynn) Livingston, her daughter Janet DuGay, son David Dodson, daughter Carol Richardson, granddaughter Shantala (husband Raghunand) DuGay-Iyengar, granddaughter Christina Richardson, grandson Clint (wife Molly Rothenberg) Richardson, and great-grandson Arka Iyengar. The family asks that donations in memory of Joy be made either to Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) www.globalministries.org, Church World Service, or Yale School of Nursing scholarship fund.




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