Genevieve Lillian Bartholomot

Genevieve L. Bartholomot Obituary

Genevieve “Jenny” Lillian Bartholomot (née Webster) of Bethesda, MD died peacefully at age 98 on February 1, 2024, after living a full and accomplished life. She is survived by her three sons, Henri D. (Lynda), Claude, and Michel; grandchildren Rayne (Matt), Spencer (Laurie), and Preston; sister-in-law Aileen; and multiple nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, grand-nephews, and cousins. She was predeceased in 1991 by her husband of more than 38 years, Henri C., in 2015 by her brother Milford, and in 2016 by her grandson Aaron.

Born in Jackson MI of good Midwestern stock, to Winfield Donovan Webster and Lillian G. Curtiss Webster, Jenny was an outgoing dynamo with a wide circle of family and friends. She always brought a kind smile and warm embrace along with jokes and candy to share with others. She would regularly make strangers feel welcome. Her family and friends were multicultural, with British, Catholic, Central American, Corsican, French, Italian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Jewish, Polish, Seventh Day Adventist, and Vietnamese heritage among others, and she loved them all. A devout believer who put faith in her God, she was baptized Presbyterian, then joined and was active for decades in the Methodist church, where she had many friends, including Leon Scheidt, with whom she grew very close before he passed away. She always felt the presence of, and knew she would once again see, others who predeceased her.

She enjoyed singing with the Sweet Adelines, first in Jackson then later in Vienna, VA, as well as in a barbershop quartet called the Jackson Jills and several church choirs. She played accordion and organ, loved vintage music, hosted numerous parties, and attended live concerts at Normandie Farms in Potomac, MD, and musicals at Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia, MD. She traveled widely and took cruises throughout the US, Caribbean, Costa Rica, and Australia. She sewed clothes and made arts and crafts. In her youth, she was a Rainbow Girl in the Eastern Star, belonged to the Jackson High School Zouaves, roller-skated, helped her dad build their family home, babysat, and worked at a “five and dime.” She grew up during the Depression and saw family and friends serve in World War II and her brother Milford Webster in the Korean War. As her boys were growing up, she was a scout mother, schoolroom mother, and Sunday school teacher.

Jenny, along with her husband until he passed away, provided a good home for their three sons, starting in DC then moving to Bethesda in the late 1950s. During her life, she also worked at a wide variety of jobs. She sold Avon for 44 years, regularly making the President’s Club and Honor Society with a customer base that reached from Bethesda to Hagerstown, MD, and beyond. She did administrative work for multiple firms, including a glass company in Jackson for 10 years, a baby photographer and national educational group in DC, and five car dealerships, an NIH security consultant, and an insurance agent in suburban MD. She prepared food and sold staples at the Bethesda Community Store, and she clerked for years at a hotel in Hagerstown while befriending an injured Bethesda neighborhood boy and a paraplegic man in the state hospital there. In 2008, she was made an honorary member of the Rotary Club of Potomac, MD.

A memorial service and reception will be held for her at the North Bethesda United Methodist Church at 10100 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, MD on Sunday, March 3, 2024, at 2 p.m. Tributes may be posted on her obituary page on the Thibadeau Mortuary website, www.InterFaithFunerals.com. Donations in her memory would be welcome to the Church, and flowers would be welcome at the memorial service.

Care entrusted to Thibadeau Mortuary Service, p.a., 124 E Diamond Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877, 301-495-4950, www.InterFaithFunerals.com.