Maxine Laird Woodard, age 91, died on Wednesday, April 21, 2010,in Jackson.

Private graveside services will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday,April 24, in the Laird-Redd Cemetery on the former farm of hergrandparents, Ira R. Laird and Jenny Woodard Laird, nearBrookhaven.

Visitation will be held on Saturday from noon until 1:30 p.m. atBrookhaven Funeral Home on Natchez Drive.

Maxine Laverne was born June 24, 1918, the eldest daughter of MaxieSamuel and Ollie Virginia Laird, in a log cabin nestled in therural area between Brookhaven and Bogue Chitto, Mississippi.Schooling began at the two-room schoolhouse “just up the road.” Shewas later graduated at Millsaps College; other academic study wasaccomplished at the University of Alabama and Mississippi College.By trade she was a legal and medical stenographer, workingprimarily at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Jackson. Atone time she was the secretary to Heber Ladner, Secretary of Stateof Mississippi, later being employed by Jackson, Young, Daniel andMitchell, a prominent Jackson law firm. During World War II, sheserved at Keesler Field, Biloxi, as an instructor, B-24 bomberhydraulic system.

Memorable points in her life included seeing Charles A. Lindberghon the Mississippi Capitol grounds, stimulating because, as hiswife said, he was radiant with youth, vitality and zest, and to an8-year-old girl, exuded innocence and goodwill. Also, memorable wasattending a Robert Frost poetry reading at Amherst College, Mass.,as well as meeting and greeting Bob Wills at a hoedown in Texas. Amissed opportunity was the cancellation of a scheduled reading byEdna St. Vincent Millay at Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Ga., forreason of the poet’s illness.

Maxine was grateful for visiting near Salisbury, England, theglorious gathering of ancient stones, the temple of Stonehenge, andthe chance to attend with her father, as a child, the remnants ofthe Confederate Army Reunion.

Maxine was a member of the Baptist Church. Of vital interest to herwere the artistry and structure of nature, the welfare andsensitivity of animals, and she never got her fill of travel orhistory.

Preceding her in death were her sister, Lexie Alyne, and herbeloved brother-in-law, George Truett Bush, and nephew, GeorgeTruett Bush Jr.

Survivors are her daughter, Dawn Nywana Plaisance and husbandShelly Plaisance, and son, Whitney Maximilian Plaisance, of St.Gabriel, La.; two sons, Gunnar Maxi Samuel and Laird AntonyWoodard, of Jackson; her sister, Lavonne Laird Bush; nieces, LexieL. Bush and Virginia Lee Fisher; and two great-nieces, JordanFisher and Scottie Brinkley, all residing near Atlanta, Ga.