Testerman, Warene (Wooley)
Mary Warene Testerman passed away after a long illness in her West Hartford home this past Thursday, March 25. She was 96 years old. Born in 1924 in Lepanto, Arkansas, Warene was one of four children born to Ella Lee & Earnest Wooley. She is predeceased by her parents and her three siblings: Norma Jean Brookens, John Wooley,
When the Wooley family moved from Arkansas to Wichita, Kansas in the 1940's, Warene went to work for Boeing Aircraft where she fabricated wings that were used in planes to train pilots. Towards the end of the war, she was accepted into the cadet nursing program at Wesley Medical Center and upon graduation, she became a Registered Nurse.
In 1949, at a young adult gathering at her church, she met the man who would become the love of her life: Leroy Neal Testerman—a pre-med student at Philips University in Enid, Oklahoma. They were married on April 2, 1950. In 1957, after Neal graduated from the Kansas University Medical School, the young couple accepted a call to become medical missionaries to Africa with the Disciples of Christ denomination.
In the years when Neal completed medical training and they prepared for mission work at Hartford Seminary, Warene gave birth to their five children: Sherrell, Jan, Tim, Mark, and Jennifer. In 1959, when they departed the United States to begin their assignment in the Belgian Congo, their oldest child was 9 and their youngest was 2. In 1968, after serving two terms on the mission field, Neal and Warene returned to the US and settled their family in West Hartford, Connecticut.
From rural Arkansas, to the plains of Kansas, to the distant land of the Belgian Congo and then to the suburbs of Hartford, Warene's life was one of faith, learning, providing, serving, caring, loving, and making home. She was known and will be remembered for her love and memorization of poetry, spelling bees, laughter, cross stitch, tennis, scrabble, and rug hooking. Warene cultivated deep, long term friendships throughout her life.
During their years in West Hartford, Neal & Warene were active members of the First Baptist Church of West Hartford. Throughout those years, while raising their five children, they opened their home to foreign students, refugees, and troubled youth. Neal & Warene would have celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary on April 2.
There was an unmistakeable fullness to her life—measured not just in the number of years—but in the way she inhabited her days. Centered by her love of God, her love for Neal and her children and 13 grandchildren, she labored to make everyone in her company to feel loved and cared for. Warene lived a life of great love and consequence. The door of her home and her heart were always open.
"I have you fast in my fortress and will not let you depart
But put you in the dungeon in the round-tower of my heart
There will I keep you forever, yes, forever and a day
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin and moulder in dust away."
(from, The Children's Hour, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
A Memorial Service at the First Baptist Church of West Hartford (90 N. Main St., West Hartford, CT) is being planned for early June.
Please sign guestbook at courant.com/obituaries