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Louise Virginia Lomax Winters, 91, the wife of the late Rev. John Lonnie Winters, died April 1, 2011, at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore after a long illness. She had been living at the Charlotte Hall Veterans Home. The Rev. Conrad Parker Jr. officiated at her funeral at Grace UMC in Fort Washington April 8. Burial will be at a future date in Arlington National Cemetery.

She was born Jan. 27, 1920, in Nottoway, Va., the oldest daughter of five children born to James and Annie Shepperson Lomax.

She received her high school diploma in 1938 from Ingleside-Fee Memorial High School, a boarding school, in Burkeville, Va. Her maternal grandfather sent her and other grandchildren to study at this institution for "colored children."

After graduating high school, Winters studied nursing at the Saint Philip Hospital School of Nursing, a segregated "Negro" nursing school, part of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, graduating in 1942. She became a registered nurse, passing her nursing examinations in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. During her career, she also took courses at Howard and Catholic Universities and the University of Maryland in Baltimore. In later years, she maintained a membership in the D.C. Area Chapter of the Saint Philip School of Nursing Alumnae as well as the Alumni Association of the Medical College of Virginia.

During World War II, she served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Part of that service was at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, the home of the Tuskegee Airmen. She also served at Lockbourne Army Air Base in Ohio, Veterans Administration Hospitals in Downey, Ill., Battle Creek, Mich., and Perry Point, Md.

She married the Rev. John Lonnie Winters in 1954 while he was pastor at Woodlawn Methodist Church (Alexandria, Va.). They had one child.

Louise Winters was involved in the Methodist churches where her husband was the pastor, including Union in Upper Marlboro and Carroll Chapel in Mitchellville, 1958-69, St. Mark’s on the Laurel Circuit, 1969-76; and Queen’s Chapel UMC in Beltsville, 1976-80, when he retired. He died from kidney failure during Holy Week in 1987.

In 1957, she became a head nurse at St. Elizabeth Hospital, a federal psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C. For a period, she worked with the criminally insane. She also instructed nursing assistants there before retiring in 1973.

Survivors include her daughter, Pia Marie Winters Jordan and son-in-law, the Rev. Dr. Basha Jordan, Jr., and two grandchildren.

Condolences may be sent to Pia Winters Jordan, 3205 Green Knoll Road, Windsor Mill, MD 21244.

Memorial gifts may be given to the Louise Lomax Winters Scholarship Fund at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing, Attn: James Parrish, P.O. Box 980567, Richmond, Virginia 23298-0567. Make checks payable to the VCU School of Nursing and write Louise Lomax Winters Scholarship in the memo section.