Jeanne Isabel Murray Jones' Obituary
Jeanne Murray Jones was born on November 25, 1941, in Canaan, Connecticut. She graduated from Housatonic Valley Regional High School in 1959. She attended the University of Connecticut where she met her future husband, Maynard, in the marching band. They were married on Sept. 9, 1960. She and Maynard completed their degrees in education at Kentucky Wesleyan College in Owensboro, Kentucky in 1965 and then moved to Flagstaff, AZ where they received their Master's degrees in 1966. They taught in Wellton, AZ public schools for a year, and then moved back to Connecticut where Jeanne became a Welcome Wagon hostess for 5 years. During this period, Jeanne served as church organist and choir director and as secretary of the building committee of Christ United Methodist Church.
They returned to AZ and Jeanne taught in Prescott Valley elementary schools until 1991. In Arizona, she and Maynard helped build the Prescott Valley United Methodist Church and helped with mission trips to Magdalena, Mexico. She was Organist and choir director at the Prescott Valley UMC for several years. In 1991, she answered a call to ordained ministry. They moved to Gays Mills, Wisconsin where she served the Gays Mills/ Seneca Charge for 6 years, while attending the university of Dubuque Theological Seminary where they both received Master of Divinity degrees in 1994. She was appointed to the Ash Creek/Willow Valley Charge in Richland Center. WI and retired from there in 2007. During that time, she was also on the Schmitt-Woodland Hills board, the Salvation Army Board and the Food Pantry Board as well as being a Chaplain at the Richland Hospital and treasurer Of Wisconsin Volunteers in Mission. Volunteers in Mission was very important to Jeanne, and she went to Biloxi, Mississippi three times after Hurricane Katrina to help with restoration and well as going to Camp Lucerne for several years to close up the camp for the winter. She also went to Jamaica on one mission trip.
Finding retirement not to her liking, she asked the Bishop for an appointment and went to Colfax in 2009, serving Colfax and Tainter United Methodist Churches. She and Maynard also played in the Ludington Guard Band.
She later served churches in Blue River, Avoca, Racine, Elkhorn and Richmond, Wisconsin.
Music was a very important part of Jeanne's life and she played baritone horn for about 60 years. She loved to travel and some of the most interesting places she visited were Hong Kong, Fiji, the Holy Land and Scotland.
Jeanne is survived by two sons: Maynard Ill and wife, Debra of Rochester, MN and Michael and wife Catharine of Tucson; one grandson, Duncan, of Tucson, and a brother, Robert Murray of Panama City, Florida. She was pre-deceased by her husband, Maynard Jr, her sister Larraine Chapin and her nephew, David Pickett.
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