Jake W. Boggs, Jr.

May 9, 1924 - January 10, 2022

Reverend Jake Woodyard Boggs, Jr. passed peacefully at age 97 early in the evening of Monday, January 10, 2022. Jake was blessed with good health and lived on his own in Mink Shoals (with some assistance in the last few years) after the passing of the love of his life, Betty Rae (White) Boggs, on January 24, 2016. He got the most out of his life and earthly body. He loved working outside, tending to his yard, building fences, and growing flowers. He cut his yard with a push mower until he was past 95 years, and he also drove until that same age when his children deemed it unsafe and took his keys (at great personal peril). The highlight of Jake's week was attending Emmanuel Baptist Church on the West Side, where he had held revivals, served as an interim Pastor, and was a member for over 50 years. His funeral service will be at Emmanuel Baptist Church at Noon on Saturday, January 22, with visitation beginning at 11 a.m. His body will be laid to rest beside that of his beloved Betty Rae, to whom he was married for over 65years, at the White family cemetery in Clendenin. Jake was born to Jake Woodyard Boggs, Sr. and Ruby Oressa (Paisley) Boggs on May 9, 1924, in the town of Gassaway, West Virginia. He had one sister, Marian Boggs Smithers of Belle, who preceded him in death. Jake's family moved from Gassaway when he was a young boy, and he grew up in Belle where his father worked as a machinist for Dupont. His mother worked for many years in the women's coats department of Stone & Thomas. After attending schools in Belle, and with the help of local businessman R. M. Maxwell (founder of the People's Store, later Stone & Thomas, and also of the Bible Center Church), Jake attended the Prairie High School Academy and then Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta, Canada where he studied for six years. Following graduation, Jake continued his education at Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC, for four years. He married his wife Betty on November 23,1950, his senior year at Bob Jones. In his early twenties, Jake held revival meetings throughout West Virginia using an old piano and a collapsible meeting tent. He also had a Christian Radio Broadcast in Charleston and published a monthly paper called Christian Conquest. Betty worked as a surgical nurse at Charleston Memorial Hospital until Jake could grow his ministry. By the 1960s, he held revival meetings throughout the United States. In the late 1960s, Jake started a travel business organizing and directing tours. He began with tours to the Holy Land, which was his favorite destination. He visited Israel and the greater Middle East 48 times. Jake also directed groups of travelers to the Soviet Union as early as 1970, and to China, Japan, India, Africa, Haiti, Hawaii, the South Pacific, and all throughout Europe. Jake still considered his most important work the revival meetings he held throughout America, and he had great joy in the more than 20,000 people who committed their lives to Jesus Christ in these meetings. Jake admired Dr. Billy Graham and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He met Billy Graham several times, and Billy joked with Jake that they had been successful because they both had been expelled from Bob Jones University (Jake for missing chapel services his senior year because he was spending too much time with his new wife). Jake heard Dr. King speak at an American Baptist convention in the early 1960s and was so impressed that he tracked him down and had a private conversation with Dr. King and his wife, Coretta, at a restaurant near the convention site. He considered Dr. King's assassination to be one of the great tragedies of American history. Jake is survived by his two children, Deborah Faith (Boggs) VanderWoude of Bradenton, FL, and Jonathan David Boggs of Charleston, along with his four grandchildren: Michal Anne VanderWoude of Sarasota, FL; Marlin Boggs, married to Kathryn, of Arlington, VA; Garrett Boggs of Huntington; and Winsor Boggs, married to Abby, of Vancouver, Canada.