Jeanne M. Rudd
Passed 03/28/2021
Jeanne received her elementary and high school education in New Haven, and was a member of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church, where she sang in the youth choir and attended services with her entire family. A self-taught pianist, she would accompany her mother when she performed at concerts. In 1947, after her mother passed, the family moved to Sedalia, NC where she attended the Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia. In 1949, she graduated from the high school division of Immanuel Lutheran College in Greensboro, NC.
In 1950, after one year at the North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham, NC (now North Carolina Central University), she was married to the love of her life, the late James (Dick) Rudd, Sr., of Sedalia, NC. Jeanne and her husband of 48 years helped to raise his deceased sister's three children: Raymond, Jesse and Dorothy Troxler, (all deceased). In 1970, she graduated Cum Laude from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, NC with a BS Degree in Office Administration. She later attended the graduate School of A&T.
In Sedalia, she joined the St. James United Methodist Episcopal Church where she held many offices including: Chairperson of the Administrative Council; Pianist; Sunday School Superintendent and Teacher; Director of the Senior Choir; Advisor to the Young Adult Choir; Treasurer; Chairperson of the Finance Committee; President of the Usher Board; Secretary of the United Methodist Women; Church Corresponding Secretary; Trustee; Liturgist; Certified Lay Speaker and preparer of the weekly bulletin and other programs.
Jeanne's employment history included Secretary at Sedalia Public School; Assistant Registrar at Palmer Memorial Institute; 15 years at North Carolina A&T State University, and Manager of the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum at the Historic Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, NC.
Jeanne founded and directed the Brown Memorial Singers and the Shining Stars Community Choir, was director and cast member of a musical drama "The Old Ship of Zion", and was also a wedding director and consultant. She wrote a column entitled "In The East" for the Carolina Peacemaker (a prominent African American newspaper in Greensboro), and composed poetry for family and friends, a tribute to her mother was published in "Verses, Verses and Visions: Taking Shape."
Jeanne served as Councilwoman and Mayor of the Town of Sedalia; President, Historian and Treasurer of the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Historical Foundation, Inc.; and a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Piedmont Teen Challenge, Inc. She received numerous citations and recognitions.
In addition to her parents, husband and baby son, she is predeceased by: sister, Evelyn Joyce Lanier Radcliffe and brother-in-law, Lloyd Leslie; brother, William Henry David Lanier, Jr. and sister-in-law, Yvonne; step mother Myrtle ‘Momsie’ Foust Lanier; nephew, Lloyd Radcliffe.
Those left to cherish Jeanne's memory are: son, James Rudd, Jr., Sedalia, NC; nieces Yeskah Radcliffe, San Antonio, TX; Dean Radcliffe Lynes (Austin), Baltimore, MD; Leslie Radcliffe, New Haven, CT; Lynn Radcliffe, Euclid, OH; Annette Radcliffe-Mills (Michael), and Kelley Radcliffe Slade, both of Whitsett, NC; nephew, Gilbert Radcliffe, New Haven, CT; several great nieces and nephews; loving cousins; "devoted daughter" Patricia Brown Fitzgerald (Rev. Larry); and several ‘daughters’, ‘sisters’, several nieces, nephews, cousins, God children, close friends and her St. James Church Family. The family also thanks her caregivers LaVerne Hedrick and Antoinette Williams for their compassion and dedicated service.
A public viewing will be held on Friday, April 2, 2021 from 4pm- 6pm in the Cassie Coote-Brown Memorial Chapel. A private graveside service honoring her life will be held on Saturday, April 3, 2021 at St. James United Methodist Church Cemetery Sedalia, NC.
Services entrusted to Perry J. Brown Funeral Home (336)-272-6109.