Obituary for Gerry Ann Cain-Goodwin Gerry Ann Cain-Goodwin, 70, of Kennesaw passed away on Saturday, June 9, 2018. A Funeral Service will be held Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. in the Chapel of Mayes Ward-Dobbins Funeral Home in Marietta. Interment will follow at 1:30 p.m. at the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton.
Gerry Ann Cain-Goodwin was born March 30, 1948 in Vicksburg, Mississippi to Jerry Cain, a railway worker, and Marie Cain (nee Galloway), a domestic worker. Gerry was christened at Bethel A.M.E. Church and raised in that faith. After graduating from Rose A. Temple High School in 1966, Gerry spent the summer working in a Magnavox television factory just outside of Chicago, Illinois.
Realizing the value of higher education, Mr. Cain and his new bride, Mrs. Alberta Cain, summoned her home to Mississippi so that she could enroll at Jackson State College, as it was known at that time. She majored in Education and served her community as member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Following her graduation from Jackson State in 1969, Gerry taught for the New Orleans Public School system.
She returned to Mississippi in 1970 where she completed her Master of Education, with a focus in Special Education, at the recently desegregated University of Southern Mississippi. In 1972, her childhood friends, one of whom was a fellow soror, introduced Gerry to newly commissioned Second Lieutenant, James D. Goodwin of St. Louis, Missouri. On July 3, 1973, the two were married at Gerry’s home church in Vicksburg, after which he whisked her away to Hanau, West Germany.
At the same time, Gerry began her long career with the Department of Defense Dependents Schools. In 1975, the newlyweds relocated to Fort Lee, Virginia. Three years later, Gerry gave birth to the couple’s first child, James D. Goodwin, Jr., known to most as JD.
In 1980, orders were received to relocate to Zweibrücken, West Germany. Gerry taught third grade at the local elementary school, taking a short break after the 1981 birth of daughter Gillian Marie Goodwin in Landstuhl, West Germany. The following year saw the family relocated once more to Frankfurt, West Germany where Gerry accepted a position as Educational Prescriptionist, where she would execute diagnostic testing and prescribe educational plans for special need children at some 24 schools throughout DoDD schools in West Germany and the BENELUX countries.
She continued to be active in Delta Sigma Theta, hosting a visit of the national president in 1982 for the founding of the West Germany Chapter and becoming a Life Member. Gerry was ever active in the academic lives of her children, always demanding of them the highest performance. The uniqueness of raising two black children abroad not being lost on Gerry and her husband, the two endeavored to introduce JD and Gillian to as many countries as possible, to the arts and architecture of Western Europe while raising them to be proud of their own unique heritage.
Her children were introduced to the German language in elementary school, attended their first opera in Vienna, and had seen the Berlin Wall all before the age of 12. As her children grew so did the world around her change. With Germany’s reunification West Germany became just Germany, and communism began to crumble in the rest of the former Eastern Bloc countries.
Following JD’s graduation from high school and the post-Cold War closure of military installations in Frankfurt in 1995, Gerry accepted a new assignment at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan. Gerry’s new assignment allowed Gillian to get a leg up on her older brother: She not only learned Japanese when she began high school on the island, but Spanish as well. After more than three decades living and working abroad, a health concern led Gerry and her husband to retire near their children in Cobb County, Georgia in 2012.
Gerry remained ever active as a Delta, and broke up the monotony of retirement by teaching English to immigrants as part of a local adult education program. Gerry is survived by her husband, James D. Goodwin of Kennesaw; son, James D. Goodwin, Jr. of Marietta; daughter, Gillian Goodwin of Marietta; sister, Marie Cain-Rolling of Vicksburg; brother, Zebedee Baker of Vicksburg; and several nieces and nephews. The family will receive friends Monday from 6:00 until 8:00 p.m., and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Marietta-Roswell Alumnae Chapter, will conduct the Omega Omega Service, Monday, June 18, 7:30pm at the funeral home.
www. mayeswarddobbins.com 770-428-1511 To send flowers or a memorial gift to the family of Gerry Ann Cain-Goodwin please visit our Sympathy Store. Upcoming Events Visitation 2018 JUN 18.
06:00 PM – 08:00 PM Mayes Ward-Dobbins Historic Marietta Chapel 180 Church Street Marietta, GA, US, 30060 Order Flowers for the Visitation Guaranteed delivery before Gerry’s Visitation begins. 2018 JUN 19. 11:00 AM Mayes Ward-Dobbins Historic Marietta Chapel 180 Church Street Marietta, GA, US, 30060 Order Flowers for the Service Guaranteed delivery before Gerry’s Service begins.
Burial 2018 JUN 19. 01:30 PM Georgia National Cemetery 1080 Veterans Cemetery Rd. Canton, GA, US Order Flowers for the Burial Guaranteed delivery before Gerry’s Burial begins.
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