In Memoriam: Robert Dudley Woodcock III

From Brooklawn Funeral Home.

Robert Dudley Woodcock III, 69, of Rocky Hill passed away surrounded by his family in the hospital on March 5, after suffering an unusually rapid deterioration of his relatively rare, long-standing lung condition.

He was born in 1946 on Long Island, New York, the son of Robert Dudley Woodcock Jr. and Beatrice Brindley Woodcock.

“Bert” had a varied and interesting career. After graduating from Brown University with a Master of Science degree in 1968 he worked briefly as a physicist for the U.S. Navy. He then decided to become a minister and received his Master of Divinity degree from Hartford Seminary in 1972. He was ordained in the United Methodist Church and served as pastor of the East Berlin and former Hartford South Park Methodist churches.

Finding that many of his parishioners had medical problems, he decided to study nursing and received his Master of Nursing degree from Yale in 1979. He developed and was director of a community health program for Center City Churches (later renamed “Hands on Hartford”) from 1979-1982, and subsequently worked as a staff nurse at the Newington Veterans Hospital. In 1984 he joined the nursing faculty at Western Connecticut University, where he remained until retiring in 2006.

After retirement, he continued to teach part-time until 2011 as an adjunct professor, and as late as this January, he was assisting in continuing education events at The Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital. He was recognized as an excellent and devoted teacher whose students left with a clear understanding of the material presented.

Known for his kindness, concern and eagerness to help others, Bert was active in many groups and organizations, including the CT Council of Parish Nurse Coordinators, the Board of Pensions and Health Benefits of the NY Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, the Hartford Foundation, and Leadership Greater Hartford. He enjoyed monthly breakfasts with fellow retired Methodist ministers, and also with Hartford Good Shepherd Church's men's group. He was an adult education coordinator at Temple Beth Torah in Wethersfield, and in the past had served on the board of the American Assembly for Men in Nursing, in various roles for the International Honor Society of Nursing, Kappa Alpha chapter, and on the Spiritual Care and CPE Advisory Committee, Danbury Hospital. He enjoyed cooking, fine dining, investigating family history, geography, Caribbean cruises, trips to the Maine coast, and playing with his grandchildren.

Mr. Woodcock is survived by his wife of 47 years, Jeanne; three children: Julien Tremblay, Katherine LeDuc, and Teresa Yankauskas; three grandchildren; and his sister, Virginia Eisenstein of Boalsburg, PA.

Shortly before leaving this world, unable to speak on a ventilator in the hospital, he surprised his family by writing his wish to be cremated and made part of a reef in the ocean, returning to the sea which he always loved from his boyhood on Long Island. The family will hold a private memorial service.

Memorial contributions may be made to the American Lung Association.