Louvenia Edge, wife of longtime Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Findley Edge, died May 29 in Orlando, Fla. at the age of 90.
Southern Seminary annually honors the Edges with the presentation of the prestigious Findley B. and Louvenia Edge Award for Teaching Excellence, given to a professor for outstanding teaching.
Funeral services were scheduled for June 3 at College Park Baptist Church in Orlando, Fla., where Edge was a member. Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr., said both Edge and her husband made important contributions to Southern during their many years of service.
“Louvenia Edge was a faithful faculty wife at Southern Seminary for many years, serving alongside her husband Dr. Findley Edge,” Mohler said.
“They shared together a passion for Christian education and for the church. She, along with Dr. Edge, will be dearly missed by the Southern Seminary community. It is a reminder once again that this institution has been built by so many people who gave so much over so many years.”
Findley Edge, who served on the Southern Seminary faculty from 1947 until 1985 and died in 2002, established himself as an expert in religious education. During his tenure at Southern, Louvenia gained a reputation as an outgoing hostess of her husband’s students.
“She participated in everything,” her son, Hoyt Edge, said of his mother’s involvement at the seminary. “She was a part of everything there. My father and mother invited every student that was in his classes over for dinner. And her ministry was that ministry.”
Andy Rawls, Southern’s longtime director of media services and a friend of Edge, echoed her son’s sentiments about Edge’s hospitality.
“She opened her home more to faculty events than any other faculty wife,” Rawls said. “She was quite a woman. She was very, very gracious and outgoing.”
While living in Louisville, Edge taught children’s Sunday School at Crescent Hill Baptist Church and wrote children’s literature for the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board (now LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention). She also taught during the summers at the Sunday School Board’s Ridgecrest Conference Center near Asheville, N.C.
The Edges retired to Winter Park, Fla., in 1985 and moved to an independent living facility in 2002. Louvenia Edge moved to assisted living in 2004.
Edge is survived by her sons Hoyt, and his wife Charlene, and Larry, along with her granddaughter Shannon.