Louise Ann (Berge) Winningham, age 91, of Knoxville, died October 6, 2024 after a fifty year battle with multiple sclerosis and more recent medical conditions.
Born October 24, 1932, in Englewood, New Jersey, to Justus W. and Clara Deaderick Berge, she grew up in Knoxville with UT Prof Henry R. and Mary Deaderick Duncan as her “second parents.”
She graduated from Knoxville High School in 1950 and from the University of Tennessee in 1954. In 1959, she earned a master’s degree in religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Ft.Worth, Texas. Louise married Rev. Otha Winningham in 1966.
After graduation from UT, she became a news journalist at the Baptist Home Mission Board, Atlanta, and also wrote “New Friends for Freddy,” a children’s book.
In 1959, she became the first Woman’s Missionary Union executive director for the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana. In 1970, she was elected first president of Woman’s Missionary Union of the Pennsylvania/South Jersey Baptist Convention, later becoming executive director for the organization.
For several years she wrote curriculum materials for Royal Service magazine. From 1976 until retirement in 1993, Louise was editor of the state Baptist newspaper for the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention, where her husband, Otha, was executive director. Following a 1993 retirement, they moved to Knoxville in 1994. They have been members of First Baptist Knoxville since that time.
In recent years, she authored biographical profiles of her great, great, great grandfather, Dr. Ephraim McDowell, Danville, Kentucky, noted surgeon of the early 1800’s and of his daughter, Adeline (Mrs. James William) Deaderick, of Jonesborough, Tennessee. Louise was a member of First Families of Tennessee, whose ancestors lived here before statehood.
Predeceased by her parents, Justus W. and Clara (Deaderick) Berge, she is survived by her husband, Otha of Knoxville and cousin, Martha Walls of Apopka, Florida. Graveside service will be 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8, at Lenoir City Cemetery, Thomas Fraser, Officiant.

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This obituary was originally published by Legacy.com by Click Funeral Home & Cremations – Middlebrook Chapel.