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Gene Ledford
Gene Akard Ledford Gene Akard Ledford died in Lakeland, Florida on April 15, 2016.She was born in Seffner, Florida in January 1925. Gene grew up in a Christian home in a very rural community. Her parents were active in church and community life and filled their home with music, good books, and visiting friends. She read Quo Vadis and Les Miserables before she could pronounce the titles. This was the setting where things were good, true, noble, right, pure, and of good report. Gene graduated from Plant City High School near the top of her class just as World War II began. So instead of college and a teaching career, she went into Civil Service and God""s plan led her to the support staff of General George C. Marshall in the Pentagon and to the church of Peter Marshall in Washington D.C. These years shaped her life as she went on after the war to be an executive secretary, a corporate secretary, Credit Union manager and bank officer, retiring from Southwest Florida Presbytery in 1990. Gene married her childhood sweetheart, W.A. (Pat) Ledford after meeting him in the third grade. They married in 1944 and had 54 years together before Pat""s death in 1998. They built a summer cottage in the Western North Carolina Mountains where they spent many retirement years taking on old mountain ways from corn cob jelly to gritted bread along with hot pine knots, hickory, and oak in a wood stove. After Pat died, Gene disposed of the properties of two packrats in the North Carolina and Florida properties. She moved to Florida Presbyterian Homes where she was active in volunteer work until her health failed. She still held her membership in the Presbyterian Church of Seffner where she was the last charter member. She was preceded in death by her parents, Fred and Ada Burgner Akard, brother Robert Boyd Akard and sister, Doris Akard Stalnaker, and her husband Pat Ledford. She is survived by a loving cousin, Dorothy (Dodie) Melton of Tennessee and special friend, Gwen Tews of Tennessee. Her ashes will be placed beside her husband""s in the old Seffner Cemetery. Memorial service will be held on Monday, April 25, 2016 at 10:30 am at the Florida Presbyterian Homes Chapel. Service: 04/25/2016 Florida Presbyterian Homes Chapel 16 Lake Hunter Drive, Lakeland, FL 33803January 20, 1925 - April 15, 201601/20/192504/15/2016
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Gene Ledford
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