Brenda Oliver, 60, social worker, counselor

Brenda Oliver made a career of helping others.

Over nearly four decades, she was employed as a social worker for two public school systems and a hospital. She found work as a consultant, too.

“It was her passion,” said her husband, Lonnie J. Oliver of Atlanta. “It was in her DNA.”

Brenda Kaye Doub Oliver, 60, of Atlanta died Friday of cancer at her home. The funeral will be noon Wednesday at New Life Presbyterian Church in College Park. Murray Bros. Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

In 1974, Mrs. Oliver earned her master’s degree from Clark Atlanta University’s Whitney M. Young Jr. School of Social Work. That’s where she met Mr. Oliver, her husband of 37 years. They married and eventually settled in Baltimore, where her husband was hired to pastor a church. Mrs. Oliver worked for the Baltimore school system.

When the couple returned to Atlanta in the mid-1980s, Mrs. Oliver worked as a medical social worker for Grady Memorial Hospital. She retired in 2003 as a school counselor and social worker for Decatur City Schools.

Mrs. Oliver merged her profession with her Christian faith. At her husband’s church, New Life Presbyterian, Mrs. Oliver helped spearhead programs that nurtured parishioners and the community. She served as chairwoman of the care committee.

“A lot of times ministering to the sick and shut-in can be reactive,” said Jonathan Watkins, New Life’s director of music. “But with Mrs. Oliver, the church was proactive.”

Mrs. Oliver enjoyed playing basketball and softball in her early years. As an adult, she won doubles and mixed doubles championships through the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association.

Mr. Oliver, who said he attended Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte on a tennis scholarship, taught her the game.

“It was a good sport that we could play together for a lifetime,” he said.

Additional survivors include a son, Kamal Oliver of Morrow; a daughter, Keisha Oliver of Grant Park; her mother, Rosetta Doub of Fort Washington, Md.; two sisters, Jackie Lowe of Waco, Texas, and Rosita Doub of Fort Washington, Md.