John Floyd Carroll, 1915-2003
After his 1983 retirement, nothing pleased the Rev. John Floyd Carroll more than taking a supply pastoral post with the sort of small congregation he began his career in nearly a half-century earlier.
The congregation of Centenary United Methodist Church, located in the Chesterfield County community of Winterpock, where he spent his final years preaching and ministering to his friends and neighbors in this, his final pastorate, referred to him affectionately as "the Bishop of Winterpock," a title bestowed by his district superintendent.
During his career, Floyd Carroll led churches throughout Virginia. As a student at Randolph-Macon College, the native of Princess Anne County began his ministry at Providence Methodist Church in Quinton, New Kent County, in 1937. He began his first full-time assignment in Lunenburg County two years later.
Married on Thanksgiving Day 1936, Floyd and his wife Lucy Bonney Carroll, shared 66 years together, a history underscored by a couple of his favorite lines: first, claiming to have "rescued Lucy from North Carolina and making her a citizen of the United States" — and later, introducing his children as "the children from my wife's first marriage." He did not lack a sense of humor.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, he served assignments at Stokesland Methodist in Danville, Ramsey Memorial Methodist in Richmond, East Hampton-Fox Hill Methodist charge, Cheriton Methodist/Oyster Chapel Charge on the Eastern Shore, and the Beech Grove-Magnolia Charge in the Suffolk area. He was named Rural Minister of the Year in 1960.
J. Floyd Carroll died on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003. In addition to his wife, Lucy, he is survived by two daughters, Sue Carroll Howell, of Bohannon, and Jean Carroll Boucher, of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada; a son, John Floyd Carroll Jr., of Chester; six grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. He is interred in Charity United Methodist Church Cemetery in Virginia Beach.
— John Floyd Carroll Jr.