Gail McMahon Hudson died on Thursday September 28th at Tulane Medical Center during a trip to New Orleans. She had turned 85 on July 4th and recently became a great-grandmother. She was a graduate of Newport News High School and Lynchburg College and the former public relations director at both Ferrum College and the Virginia division of the American Cancer Society. She also served as a member of the Henrico County School Board. Most recently Gail was a resident of Westminster Canterbury on Westbrook Avenue in Richmond.
Gail was born in New York City in 1932 and later moved with her family to Newport News. As a girl, she showed a flair for writing. She edited the student newspaper at Lynchburg College and, after earning her bachelor’s degree in English in 1953, worked for the news bureau at Randolph Macon Women’s College. After marrying Grant Hudson, she lived in the Richmond area for the rest of her life except for an eight-year span when she and Grant worked at Ferrum College. After moving to Highland Springs, she worked for the Virginia Department of Health before beginning the first of two long stints at the American Cancer Society. As a teenager, she’d dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent. That didn’t come to pass, but she spent much of the past 30 years of her life traveling the world, from Ireland to Spain to Morocco to Costa Rica (when she was 82) and many other places, along with her younger sister, Elizabeth Wendling. Gail loved visiting her native city, New York, and attending Broadway shows and touring museums.
Gail was a quiet person, a bit reserved, but she was also warm and had tremendous energy. “A classy dame,” according to some who knew her well. One friend said of her: “Gail liked to write to-do lists so she could cross things off.” Along with working full-time, she juggled the responsibility of being a mother to two sons, Stephen and Michael, and an unofficial mother to members of the basketball teams her husband coached at Highland Springs High
School and Ferrum College. Along with traveling overseas, she also loved spending time at her house at Duck Beach on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. She was an avid reader, enjoyed dancing to swing music, and loved going to the Lewis Ginter Botanic Garden and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. As busy as she was, she always had time for her grandchildren, taking them places when they were too young drive and accompanying them on adventures when they were old enough to get behind the wheel. She gave them books, encouraged their interests in music and art and other sweet things in the life, and was always there when they needed her. In her retirement years, one grandchild asked her: “Are you bored?” “No,” she said. “I’m too busy!” She had regular dinner dates on Fridays and Saturdays with two different sets of friends at Westminster Canterbury. Wine bottles were often popped open at these gatherings. Gail sang many Mondays with the Heartstrings, an all-female singing group that performed at retirement centers throughout the Richmond area. After suffering a stroke four years ago, she needed speech therapy to help undo the cognitive effects. But she came back with gusto, quickly regaining her speech and foiling the plans of family and professionals who thought she should give up her driving license by acing an official driving test.
She is survived by her sister Elizabeth Wendling, her sons Stephen and Michael, her nephew Phillip Wendling, her brother in law Doug Wendling, her daughters in law Deanna Hudson and Darcey Steinke, her three grandchildren, Ben Hudson, Jacob Hudson and Mandy Fowler, her step granddaughter Abbie Hornburg and her great granddaughter Ayla Fowler. She was preceded in death by her parents Robert and Harriet McMahon, her husband Grant, her brother David and her beloved grandson Bradley Hudson.
Donations can be made in her name to American Cancer Society and Lynchburg College.
Gail’s family will hold a visitation from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. this Friday, October 6, at Woody’s Funeral Home at 1771 North Parham Road in Richmond. A memorial service will be held at the funeral home at 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 7.
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