Eulogy For Victoria Anne Todd Homegoing Service Funeral

Victoria Anne Scott Todd

By Rick Gillespie- Mobley

Psalm 139:1-18 John 14:1-6 May 22, 2021

When the year 2020 started, very few people knew just how dramatic of a year it was going to be. I hope that one thing you realized is that it did not catch God off guard.

God still had a purpose for our individual lives even though a pandemic was spreading across the globe. The size of world events do not determine the plans God has for our lives.

The year was 1933. Adolf Hitler was elected to become dictator of the German Third Reich, and he established the first concentration camp at Dachau. 1933 was the worst year of the Depression with an unemployment rate of 25% meaning 1 out of 4 people didn’t have a job.

The drought in the midwestern part of the United States was continuing and a lot of farmland had simply become a dust bowl.

It was against this back drop of world events that God decided to send a little girl into the lives of William and Victoria Scott on a cold wintery January day in Cleveland, OH. 1933 didn’t look like a good year for a black couple to have a child in Cleveland. But that didn’t stop them from giving this little girl a name with royalty attached to it.

This bundle of joy was named Victoria Anne Scott. With the names of two queens in her name, Queen Victoria and Queen Anne, the world should have been put on notice that this little girl would one day take charge and rule those around her with both love, dignity, and compassion.

We are here today because that little girl grew into a magnificent, dignified woman who touched our lives in various special and unique ways. We recognized that she was a gift from, God and now she has returned to the wonderful God who created her. She has completed that cycle of birth, life, death and return to God. It is a journey that we shall all one day complete.

Victoria lived a life of abundance because of the many relationships she had. She knew the joy of being a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a great grandmother, a friend, an investor in the lives of others, and a gift to the world from God above.

Victoria was the work of God’s creation, and as beautifully as God created her to be, she has returned to her Creator. She now stands before God, to give an account for the life that she lived, as we must all one day give an account.

The Bible tells us, there is a time and a season for everything under the sun. A time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to hope and a time to give up, a time for joy and a time for pain, a time to be born and a time to die.

Victoria made us thankful that there is a time to gather together for holidays. One of the gifts that Victoria has had throughout her life has been the gift of hospitality. Thanksgiving was one of her favorite holidays because it was her opportunity to host the family dinner and get together.

Few things brought more joy into her life than seeing love flow through her family members. Valerie said her mom loved to cook, even though her cooking was not that great. It was the opportunity Victoria had to serve others that kept her cooking.

Psalm 139 tells us that we are wonderfully and fearfully made. There are gifts in each of us that we never know that we have, because we don’t pursue the opportunity to let the gifts blossom. Victoria was a skilled pianist, yet she didn’t start her lessons until she was an adult with her husband Earl. This is the first time I’ve heard of a husband and wife with matching grand pianos in their home.

Victoria lived her life trying to equip others to go further than they may have wanted to go. Valerie made the bold announcement to her mom, “I’m not going to go to college.” Can you imagine what this sounded like to a woman who was the first in her family to go to college and to graduate.

Her only daughter whom she has drastically loved from the moment she was born is telling her she’s not going to college. To her credit Victoria kept her cool and told Valerie, “You are going to college and you grades will determine which college you are going to attend.”

That was the end of that discussion. Think of all the lives Valerie has touched as a teacher, principal and Administrator, because her mother was wise enough to ignore her statement.