A service for former township resident J. Elizabeth L. Cox will be held Saturday, Jan. 5, at 1 p.m. at Christ Church, 66 Highland Ave, Short Hills. Visitation will be held Friday, Jan. 4, from 3 to 8 p.m. at the Bradley Smith & Smith Funeral Home, 415 Morris Ave., Springfield. Ms. Cox, 85, died Dec. 27 at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. Born and raised in Short Hills, she resided in Summit. Ms. Cox received a bachelor of arts degree in romance languages and political science from the University of Vermont in 1949. She spent the summer of 1949 abroad in a foreign study program on the "Marshall Plan in Action." In 1952, she received a master's degree in international organizations from New York University and went on to receive a doctorate degree in the same subject. She later received a master's degree in library sciences from Pratt Institute. She began her early career in journalism, working from 1952 to 1957 as an information analyst for the Free Europe Committee in New York and moved from there to various other jobs in journalism, before eventually working in New Jersey state government. Ms. Cox served as chairwoman of the Summit Republican Committee for 13 years. She served in the state Assembly from 1971 to 1972. Ms. Cox served as an alternate delegate to three Republican national conventions She was the founder of the Union County Women's Political Caucus and the National Statewide for New Jersey Women's Political Caucus. She also led the work which resulted in the creation of the New Jersey Division on Women. Ms. Cox founded New Jersey Research and Information Services in 1994. Ms. Cox was a former vice chairwoman of the board of trustees of the Summit Free Public Library, a member of the Rent Commission of the Substandard Housing Board and chairwoman of the Civil Rights Commission. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Union County Women's Political Caucus of New Jersey.