Wanda Rooks Chadwick
1930-2022
Wanda was a native of Citrus County FL, having been born in the community of Pleasant Grove, of the pioneer Rooks Family. She was the oldest child of George Samuel Rooks and Stella Mae Smith. She attended both elementary and high school in Inverness, FL, graduating in 1948. She attended Jones Business College in Jacksonville, FL for one year then worked at B.F. Goodrich Company’s district office in Jacksonville where she met her future husband, Harold Homet Chadwick. They were married in December 1951. She gave her notice early the next summer when her husband whisked her back to his home in the cool mountain air of Bradford County in northeastern PA. He and his cousin opened a John Deere farm machinery business and ran it for 9 years in Troy, PA while Wanda stayed home and started raising their first three children.
They then moved to Bergenfield, NJ where Wanda continued raising her three children while also working for Federal Paper Board in Bogota, NJ while her husband attended New York Medical College in New York City. He interned at Polyclinic Hospital in Harrisburg, PA, where their fourth child was born. He continued his education to earn a Board Certification in Family Practice and Wanda assisted him in his practice in Wysox, PA as a bookkeeper and Audio Technician, having earned that certification at Penn State University. After her husband’s death in 1995, she moved back to Citrus County FL, where her mother and many relatives still lived.
Wanda considered herself very blessed in her life and family always came first. She had her own large extended family in Florida and also her husband’s large extended family in Pennsylvania, all of whom she loved and cherished very dearly. The family reunions she planned and hosted every year at their home on Mercur Hill in Wysox will always be some of her PA family’s fondest memories. Wanda enjoyed researching local history and family genealogy as well as gardening, sewing, painting, reading, and nature. She loved landscaping and building stone walls from the fieldstone she gathered in the woods surrounding their home and was always excited when she came across a stone covered in fossils from the Ice Age. She loved walking on forest trails on Mercur Hill and later on the Withlacoochee State Trail in Citrus County, FL. She enjoyed observing and photographing wildlife in their natural habitat. By her own admission, she was a homebody, but she will always be remembered for the delicious homegrown blueberry pies she made and donated regularly to events at the Wysox Presbyterian Church in Wysox, PA.
Wanda was predeceased by her husband of 44 years, both parents, a baby sister Joyce Irene Rooks; sister Norma Rooks Barnes Ray and husband Darwyn Ray of Lecanto, FL; brother George Delton Rooks and wife Betty Rooks of Inveness, FL; brother-in-law James Chadwick and wife Mary Lou Chadwick of Camptown, PA; brother-in-law Everell Chadwick and wife Jean Chadwick of Shavertown, PA; sister-in-law Dorothy Ann Chadwick Brabson and husband Wray Brabson of Titusville, FL.
She leaves behind four children: Jon Scot Chadwick and wife Michele of Hummelstown, PA; Thomas K. Chadwick and wife Regina of Tampa, FL; Marcia Chadwick Fontenot of Buckeye, AZ; and Jan Marie Chadwick of Inverness, FL. She is also survived by 12 grandchildren, 17 great grandchildren, as well as many nieces, nephews, and cousins.
Family and friends are invited to her Celebration of Life Friday August 5, 2022 at
1pm with Rev. Lou Ellen Hartley officiating from Chas E. Davis Funeral Home 3075 S. Florida Ave, Inverness. Visitation will begin 12:00 noon until time of services. Wanda will be interned at her children’s convenience, beside her husband in the Camptown Cemetery, Camptown, PA. Camptown, famously known for Steven Foster’s Camptown Racetrack song, was her husband’s hometown.
The family requests in lieu of flowers that donations be made to Friends of the Withlacoochee State Trail at https://www.fotwst.org (support us)
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