Feb. 4, 2008 | By Staff

NEW ORLEANS – Sarah Fox Eddleman, wife of the late New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Henry Leo Eddleman, died Dec. 23, 2007 in Louisville, Ky. She was 95.
 

A native of Marianna, Ark., Mrs. Eddleman was a missionary, an author and a homemaker. Her husband served as president of NOBTS from 1959 to 1970.
 

“Sarah Eddleman was a wonderful First Lady throughout her husband’s tenure as president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary,” NOBTS President Chuck Kelley said Thursday. “His outstanding scholarship and missionary passion combined with her warmth and hospitality gave them a distinct and powerful ministry during the most tumultuous decade of modern American history.”
 

Sarah Eddleman was a graduate of Meredith College and Carver School of Missions. She is survived by her daughters, Dr. Sarah E. Duvall and Evelyn E. Gordinier; six grandchildren and 15 grandchildren.
 

Dorothy Kelley Patterson, wife of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson, worked for Mrs. Eddleman when she was a student at NOBTS. Patterson called  Mrs. Eddleman, “a genuine woman of strength in every sense of the biblical paradigm.
 

 “She loved the Lord and served Him every day of her life,” Patterson said. Her husband Leo Eddleman did indeed sit in the gates of our Southern Baptist Zion from distinguished missionary service to top posts among theological educators; yet he would have been the first to say that he could never have accomplished what he did without her.”
 

Mrs. Patterson, sister of NOBTS President Chuck Kelley, said Eddleman set a high standard.
 

 “Looking back, Sarah Eddleman was for me a prophetic mentor, preparing me in the details of hospitality and compassionate responses to people in need as well as inspiring me to the disciplines of character necessary to live in the shadow of a great man, accepting criticism with grace and praise with humility,” Patterson said. “Surely she must have created and fine tuned the model for every First Lady. She surely did for me.”
 

Leo Eddleman succeeded Roland Q. Leavell as NOBTS president on Feb. 1, 1959, after serving as president of Georgetown College in Kentucky. Eddleman’s tenure was a time of physical and academic growth for the seminary. Willingham Manor and Hamilton Hall were constructed during the Eddleman presidency. The John T. Christian Library’s holdings expanded to 115,000 volumes. Well-known Christian ministers and laypersons also spoke on campus during Eddleman’s tenure, including oil tycoon M.L. Hunt and Gen. William K. Harrison, the lead negotiator for the allies in the Korean armistice. The Tharp Lecture Series, an annual tradition on campus, was expanded during Eddleman’s time in office.
   

Condolences may be sent to the family in care of: Sarah Duvall; 14813 Foxbend Court; Louisville, KY 40245
 

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