Jeffrey Wilson Good

November 23, 1956 - October 9, 2024

Jeffrey Wilson Good took his leave from the world we know on October 9, 2024.

Jeffrey was born at Rockingham Memorial Hospital on November 23, 1956, fifth child and only son to parents Gwendola Pauline Weaver Good and James Wilson Good, who precede him in death. A resident of Rockingham County, Virginia, his entire life, he spent his early years looking for trouble to get into in the vicinity of Keezletown. If some of his stories are to be believed, he had little difficulty in finding it.

Health problems first encountered at an early age set the tone for a contentious relationship between Jeff and the medical industry that would last throughout his life, though he would be the first to admit that it was that same industry that gave him the tools with which to fight against the sickness and pain that followed him from childhood onward. At an early age, doctors told Jeffrey for the first time that his days were numbered due to those health problems. It was not the last time that he'd hear such a thing, and he took pride in confounding and outlasting such predictions.

Jeff was raised to consider supporting and caring for his family to be the most important and necessary work of a man's life. He started working in his teens, splitting his time between gainful employment and completing his education at Turner Ashby High School, where he graduated in 1976. Not long after, he started down the road toward building a new family when he first met Vincena April Dean, who went on to marry Jeffrey on May 12, 1979.

Having always liked the idea of working with his hands and building things that might last a while, Jeff became a carpenter, working on sites all over the Harrisonburg-Rockingham area (the Music Building at James Madison University is one he worked on that he took particular pride in) and beyond over the years, now splitting his time between 40+ hours a week on the job and building that new family with Vincena out of a trailer park in Mayland, just outside of Broadway. They had two sons: Vincent, born in 1981, and Nathan, born in 1987. Jeff thought that supporting and caring for his family meant much more than simply money, so he and Vincena found the time (Vincena working full-time herself) to be where their sons were as much as possible, working to make whatever their family was involved in the best that it could be.

Jeff was a regular visitor to Rockingham County Public Schools throughout his sons' time attending them, his arrival always heralded by the jingling of dozens of keys clipped to his belt loop.

The boys were involved in Scouting, and so Jeff and Vincena became administrators in their Cub Scout Pack.

The boys played Little League Baseball, and so Jeff became an assistant coach, and later an umpire.

The boys played in the Middle and High School Band, and so Jeff and Vincena became active boosters for the band, spearheading fundraisers and helping shepherd dozens of rowdy teenagers hours away to play Pep Band tunes in freezing weather.

In 1993, Jeffrey was injured on a job site where he worked as a carpenter, struck by a carelessly-thrown piece of lumber as he walked to his vehicle to retrieve a tool. This injury, primarily to a knee, would eventually rob him of his ability to pursue the trade he'd spent a decade-plus working in, while becoming the source of constant physical pain that followed him for the rest of his days, and another in the ever-growing list of health problems going back to his childhood. But Jeff was raised to consider supporting and caring for his family to be the most important thing, and so he kept working anyway. He kept working in carpentry until he physically couldn't any longer, and then he found other industries to work in. Jeff became a security guard, working his way up to administrative positions in multiple companies through tenacity and devotion to the job, often working 60-80 hours in a week to do so. When the physical demands of that vocation became too great for his dwindling mobility, he moved on to working in agribusiness, driving truck and tractor for local farmers until the act of climbing into and out of the vehicles and equipment became too difficult and painful for him to continue.

To support his family, Jeffrey Good worked until he physically couldn't anymore, and then he kept working.

Jeff spent his later years in and out of the hospital far, far more than he'd have liked, as his litany of illnesses and infirmities continued to grow and worsen, but he worked even then to keep his spirits and those of the people around him high. Despite his own mobility issues, he found the time between hospital stays to volunteer at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (where his own father James had lived years ago), driving a scooter to aid mobility-impaired residents in getting around the place. Jeff liked nothing better than the opportunity to sit down and talk to someone a while, recounting his youth in a house with four older sisters or spitballing about the events of the day. If he could make you laugh once or twice, he felt like he'd done his job.

Jeff liked a lot of things, really. He liked music (especially sad songs), and comic books, and science fiction, and westerns. He liked basketball (and liked to tell stories about pickup games at prisons, of which he was only ever a visitor), and football, particularly the Washington Redskins. He liked Star Trek, Gunsmoke, and firearms in general. But he loved his family.

He loved his mother and father, Gwendola and James. He loved his sisters, Clara Baldwin, Sarah Lam, Evelyn Atkins, and Georgia Switzer, all of whom survive their younger brother. He loved the man he considered his closest friend, Georgia's husband Raymond Lee Switzer, who like their parents precede him in death, and whose loss pained Jeffrey deeply. He loved his nieces and nephews, of which there are many, though he would likely single out Raymond's son Shannon Switzer as the closest thing he had to a third son. He loved his children, both his human sons Vincent and Nathan, and his fuzzy feline children Lazzy, Smokey, Tigger, Dreamsicle, and Sherbet, of which only Sherbet remains. He loved his soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Nathan's fiance Candace Holland, and his granddaughter Abby. He particularly loved being a grandfather, and would very much have liked to meet his impending second grandchild, but loved them despite the lack of formal introductions.

Jeffrey Wilson Good died on October 9, 2024, at his home in Mayland, surrounded by his family. He will be missed.