Helen J. Goodwin, a retired Coppin State University professor who was the mother and grandmother of two area legislators, died of Alzheimer's disease Friday at Keswick Multi-Care Center. The Forest Park resident was 95.
Born Helen Jefferson in Norfolk, Va., she earned a Bachelor of Arts at Hampton Institute, a master's degree from New York University and a doctorate in education from the Johns Hopkins University. She also did graduate study at Columbia University.
"She was truly a feminist and a renaissance woman," said state Sen. Delores G. Kelley, a daughter who lives in Randallstown.
As a young woman in Norfolk, Dr. Goodwin learned to read blueprints and assisted her husband, Stephen C. Goodwin, who owned a construction business and built homes and churches.
They initially moved to New York, where she received additional schooling, then moved to Baltimore in 1962 when she joined the Morgan State University faculty and he became a Carver Vocational-Technical School teacher.
Dr. Goodwin later joined Coppin State University and taught for nearly two decades.
"She was a no-nonsense, precise and disciplined teacher," said Calvin W. Burnett, Coppin's former president and a former state secretary of higher education. "She was liked by students and had the ability to help pupils who needed some extra training. She was really an outstanding professor."
Dr. Goodwin worked in the political campaigns of Ms. Kelley and of her granddaughter Helen L. Holton, a Baltimore City Council member who represents the 8th District.
For more than 20 years, Dr. Goodwin commuted to New York and worked at Health Watch Information and Promotional Services and AMRON Management Consultants, businesses owned by family members.
"She was a very inquisitive person. She was intrigued with how things could fit together, whether words in a crossword puzzle, a building that she wished to renovate, or a garment that she wished to sew," said her son, Stefan Goodwin of Baltimore, a professor at Morgan State University.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Payne Memorial African American Episcopal Church, 1714 Madison Ave.
In addition to her daughter, son and granddaughter, survivors include two other daughters, Dr. Norma J. Goodwin of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Barbara G. Cuffie of Baltimore; a foster daughter, Phyllis A. Anderson of Brooklyn, N.Y; and five other grandchildren. Her husband of 59 years died in 1994.
jacques.kelly@baltsun.com