Eva Joan “Jo” Newlin Poole

Poole—Eva Joan “Jo” Newlin Poole, 90, on July 31, 2025, at Friends Homes at Guilford retirement community in Greensboro, N.C., where she had lived the past few years. Jo was born on March 1, 1935, to Algie Innman Newlin and Eva Miles Newlin in Greensboro. She had one younger brother, James Clarkson “Jim” Newlin. The children grew up on the Guilford College campus where their father taught history and their mother was in the Modern Languages Department. In the late 1940s, the family spent two years in Geneva, Switzerland, where Algie and Eva were codirectors of the Friends International Centre. Upon returning to Greensboro, Jo enrolled at Greensboro (now Grimsley) Senior High School, graduating in 1951 at age 16. She had a passion for music and was a skilled cellist and singer. Jo enrolled at Duke University, where she was an Angier B. Duke Scholar. She graduated from Duke in 1955 with a bachelor’s degree in French.

While at Duke, Jo married a fellow student, Adrian Curtis Bird, on December 17, 1955. Following his graduation in 1956, the couple lived in New York and for a number of years in Port of Spain, Trinidad. After their marriage dissolved, Jo returned to Greensboro in the early 1970s. On July 15, 1973, she wed, at the home of her parents, Herbert Leslie “Herb” Poole, the library director at Guilford College. With this union, she gained two sons, Luther Herbert “Luke” Poole III and John Wesley “Wes” Poole. Jo and Herb enjoyed “Lost Pines,” their home in Summerfield, N.C., where they entertained guests and had dogs, horses, and chickens among their menagerie. Jo was close to two foreign exchange “daughters,” Ekaterina “Katja” Karelina and Natalia Mazaeva.

Jo often did magazine and newspaper editing and public relations. She enjoyed working as director of special events at Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences.

A tenth-generation Quaker, Jo was a lifelong member of New Garden Meeting in Greensboro. Once she returned to Greensboro, much of her work was for the meeting and for Guilford College. She served on the boards of New Garden Friends School, North Carolina Friends Historical Society, Friends of the Guilford College Library, and North Carolina Yearly Meeting (NCYM) Publications Board. She was president of Guilford College Women and of Guilford College Art Appreciation Club. Jo coordinated the statewide 1997 Tercentenary, celebrating 300 years of Quaker presence in North Carolina. She was a member of the Louetta Knight Gilbert Circle of the United Society of Friends Women from 1976 to 1982, serving as president from 1978–1979, and as vice president of the Executive Board from 1976–78.

Jo sang in New Garden Meeting’s choir and the Choral Society of Greensboro. She was a skilled poet and member of New Garden’s poetry group. Jo spoke widely in the community about poetry, prayer, and topics of spiritual interest. At meetings for worship, she gave oral testimony, including through Zoom when she was unable to attend in person.

Jo loved to experience the culture of other nations. She visited 73 countries, living for extended periods in Switzerland, Trinidad, Tobago, England, Germany, and Russia.

Jo worked diligently with others on the NCYM Publications Board to bring Charity Cook: A Liberated Woman back into publication. Written by her father in 1981, it had been out of print for more than a decade. She was proud to finish this in 2024 and see it published in 2025.

Jo was predeceased by her husband, Herb Poole, in 1999; and her brother, Jim Newlin, in 2022.

She is survived by two children, Luke Poole and Wes Poole (Alexis “Lexie”).