Obituary

Myra L. Withers, 72, Army wife, volunteer

Myra Little Withers, an Army wife and church volunteer, died March 21 at Mount Vernon Hospital in Alexandria. She was 72.

The daughter of an Army artillery officer, Mrs. Withers was born at Fort Sill, Okla. She was with her parents at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. She graduated from Granby High School in Norfolk in 1952; attended Sacred Heart Academy in San Antonio; and later attended George Washington University, where she was a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority.

Through her brother Donald C. Little Jr., at the time a cadet at West Point, she met her future husband, Lt. George Kenyon Withers Jr. They were married Dec. 27, 1956, at St. Patrick”s Episcopal Church in the District. She accompanied her husband on assignments in the United States and Germany, including Fort Campbell, Ky.; Cambridge, Mass.; Fort Belvoir; Fort Leavenworth, Kan.; the District; Fort Meade, Md.; and Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe and Frankfurt, Germany. For the past 25 years, she and her husband lived in Alexandria.

Mrs. Withers volunteered as a member of the Altar Guild at Episcopal churches at Fort Meade and at St. Luke”s in Alexandria. She taught Sunday school at All Saints Episcopal Church in Belmont, Mass. She was a Cub Scout den mother in Arlington in the late 1960s and a Girl Scout leader in Germany and at Fort Meade. She was a member of the Army Engineer Officers Wives Club in the 1980s.

A caring mother and devoted wife, Mrs. Withers had a lively sense of humor that was captured in a statement she made three years ago for her husband’s 50-year reunion yearbook: “The top accomplishment of my 48 years of married life is that I’ve finally learned to make a good pie crust from scratch.”

Survivors include her husband, retired Maj. Gen. George Kenyon Withers Jr. of Alexandria; three children, retired Lt. Col. George K. Withers III of Chantilly, Kelley L. Withers of Pearisburg, Va., and Elizabeth D. Withers of Springfield; two brothers, retired Lt. Col. Donald C. Little Jr. of Trinity, Fla., and William W. Little of Fairfax Station; and two grandchildren.