PORTLAND – Janice Dean Woodward Beedy, 85, of Standish, died Monday, Aug. 30, at Maine Medical Center as the result of lung cancer.

Born in Minot, March 18, 1919, she was raised on the family farm on Brighton Hill in Minot. She was the daughter and third child of John H. and Vella Ladd Woodward.

Mrs. Beedy was educated in Minot at the Hersey Hill School and graduated from Leavitt Institute in Turner in 1938.

She graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1942, with a bachelor’s degree in home economics.

She was a stalwart Maine girl, walking four miles a day on her round trip walk to a one-room school. Her high school education necessitated staying in the dorm at Leavitt Institute in Turner, returning home on weekends to help on the home farm.

Attending college also entailed dorm life with infrequent trips home. Her college experience was heightened by Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and all the struggles associated with World War II.

She married fellow high school classmate Robert H. Beedy of Turner on Aug. 20, 1944. A companion, fellow teacher and adventurer, he died in 1971.

Mrs. Beedy was a homemaker and teacher of home economics and fifth grade. Her teaching career crossed many communities, Houlton, Bucksport, Norridgewock, Waldoboro, Wilton, Halfway Oregon, Bar Harbor and finally SAD 6 in Buxton. Having been an athlete in high school and college, she coached girls field hockey and basketball.

Mrs. Beedy enjoyed gardening, sewing, knitting and painting, a hobby she took up after retirement. She loved her church and church family and actively participated in all aspects of the church mission and community. She enjoyed keeping her extensive lawn mowed and maintained and stacking her firewood herself for each winter.

She enjoyed walking and traveling and managed to find time for cross-country skiing in her busy retirement years.

She is survived by her daughter, Enid Kelley, of Standish; a son, Dennis Beedy and his wife, Joyce, of New Gloucester; a brother, Howard Woodward and his wife, Lois, of Minot; and four grandchildren, Mirah Kelley, of Storrs, Conn., Molly Fabbricante and her husband, Nick, of New Gloucester, Peter Kelley, of Standish and Megan Beedy, of New Gloucester.