Winnifred Nichols, who with her late husband, Roy Eugene Nichols, built and served as ministers at Denver’s Unity Church, died March 25 at a Greenwood Village care center. She was 83.
Unity Church on the Avenue, 4670 E. 17th Ave., is part of the New Thought movement.
“The movement has no creed or dogma and believes there is a spark of the divine in everyone,” said Nichols’ daughter Celeste Nichols-Goldbaum of Aurora.
“Our purpose here is to experience our divine nature,” Nichols-Goldbaum said.
Winnifred Nichols wanted to be a forest ranger until she went to a mental-science lecture in Denver and fell in love with the “handsome usher,” Gene Nichols, said Nichols-Goldbaum.
Her mother had a “faith of steel,” Nichols-Goldbaum said, and had a core belief that allowed her to overcome many physical problems, including osteoporosis.
“Nothing got her down,” said another daughter, Lynette Nichols-Newman of Elgin, Ill. “She was like a whirlwind.”
When a problem or stress came along, “she would go to a quiet place, get calm, meditate, tune into the God within, clear her mind and say, ‘All is well,’ and it worked,” said Nichols-Newman.
The Nicholses served churches in Phoenix and Riverside, Calif., before returning to Denver and building Unity Church on the Avenue.
“Winnifred looked for the good in everyone,” said longtime friend Helen Walker of Denver. “She saw good in people, even when they didn’t see it themselves.”
Another core belief of Winnifred Nichols’ was that people should celebrate their freedom “to choose, to think, to plan, to imagine, to dream,” said Nichols-Goldbaum. “She believed a person could direct those choices to a positive, affirmative, creative and dynamic life.”
Winnifred Nichols was a shy person, her daughters said, and left the sermons to her husband. She tended the business end of the church, developed curriculum and was church youth director.
Nichols sewed clothes for her daughters, wrote poetry and did watercolors of wildflowers and trees.
She could sew anything, from outfits for Barbies and teddy bears to drapes, her daughters said.
She edited her husband’s books, which included “Picture Yourself a Winner” and “Esoteric Keys to Personal Power.”
Winnifred Lynch was born in Denver on May 24, 1924, and graduated from East High School.
She earned a degree from Colorado Woman’s College and a master’s in business education from the University of Denver.
She taught business classes in Denver junior and senior high schools for 25 years.
In addition to her daughters, Nichols is survived by two grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
