JOEL MANNING ANDERSON's Obituary
PERRY –
Joel Manning Anderson, 75, passed away peacefully on March 1, 2022, after a brief illness. A private Memorial Service will be held for Joel and his identical twin brother, Jim Franklin Anderson, who passed away in March 2020. The service will be held in May at Perry United Methodist Church. In lieu of flowers, the family respectfully requests memorial contributions to Perry United Methodist Church, 1002 Carroll Street, Perry, GA 31069.
Joel was born in Moultrie on May 16, 1946, to the late Robert and Vindetta Manning Anderson. He grew up in the small community of Funston, Georgia, where his grandfather owned the local post office. Joel graduated from Moultrie High School in 1964. He, his twin brother, and an older brother, Gene, were nurtured and taught as young children to be kind, to honor others, to revere family, and to rely on God to direct their lives. Each of them kept those principles throughout life.
Joel earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Math from Georgia Southern College and went on to further his education at Florida State University where he studied for Master’s level classes. After college, Joel accepted a management position in the textile industry with The Bibb Company and moved to Newnan, GA. It was in Newnan that he met Janette Jones. They soon knew that they would make a life together, and the couple married in May of 1971. In 1973, The Bibb Company transferred Joel to their Ft. Valley location where he spent many years building relationships with his team and producing quality merchandise to be distributed globally. While NAFTA continued to weave its way into the textile industry, eliminating jobs and wreaking havoc on upper management, Joel retired from that industry in 2001 after more than thirty years of service. He transitioned into a job with National Management Resources, assigned first to the Wesleyan College campus and later to the Mercer University campus. Joel served as Site Manager for National’s contract with Mercer College in Macon, GA, where he worked until his full retirement in 2017, but has maintained friendships with National management and with many Mercer connections in the years following.
In 1973, the Andersons settled in Perry where they would raise their daughter Amy. Joel was deeply devoted to his family. He supported and encouraged their daughter by attending all of her church functions, piano recitals, dance performances, and many other school functions while she was growing up, continuing as she started a family of her own. Once his granddaughters arrived, Joel delighted in being "Daddy Joe" and watching his granddaughters grow, learn, and become beautiful, smart young ladies, and the “apple of his eye,” along with their mother.
Joel was a long-time member of Perry United Methodist Church and was very active through the years. He sang in the church choir, was a member of the United Methodist Men, served on the Executive Board and the Board of Trustees, and taught the Pathfinders Sunday School Class for many years.
Joel was such a patient man. During retirement, he became an avid birder, researching, photographing, and studying the fifty-two species of birds that passed through for water and feed, and often built nests and hatched their babies in backyard houses, much to his delight. He recorded all of the data, tracking their habits and patterns, so that he would better be able to feed and nurture them, encouraging their return to his home - their homes – year after year. He was thrilled to have watched the bluebirds hatch a brood of babies three times. Joel took to heart the words of a good birder friend, “give them food and water, and the birds will come.”
He was preceded in death by his parents; his brother Gene Anderson; and his identical twin brother, Jim Anderson.
Left to cherish the memories they created with Joel are his loving and devoted wife of over fifty years, Janette Jones Anderson of Perry; his daughter, Amy Anderson Peterson of Smyrna; his granddaughters, Naomi Manning Peterson and Roxana “Roxie” Powell Peterson; his sisters-in-law, Pat Anderson of Funston and Jean Anderson of Tifton; and his nieces, Nancy Mark and Beth Richardson, and their families.
Condolences for the family may be left in the online guestbook at www.watsonhunt.com. Watson-Hunt Funeral Home has been entrusted with the arrangements.
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