Jean Elizabeth Short Purcell, mother, wife, teacher, cancer survivor and loving sister died May 23, 2011 at the age of 91 in Staunton, Virginia surrounded by her family. Mom was born May 13, 1920 to Margaret Winifred Statton Short and James Arthur Short, Sr. in Isabel, Kansas and made numerous places her home as a child traveling from one oil field camp to another with Shell Oil Company. She made lifelong friends where ever she lived. Many times she would tell us what a wonderful childhood she had and how much she loved her mom and dad, brothers, and sister.
She is preceded in death by her parents, her husband, A. Draper Purcell, her sister, Margaret Louise (Peggy) Jones, and her brother, William Rodney Short. She is survived by her son, Andrew A. Purcell and his wife Paulette of Waynesboro, Virginia, daughter Valerie Jean Purcell of Waynesboro, Virginia and son, Jeffrey D. Purcell of Beaumont, Texas. She is also survived by her brother, James A Short and his wife Helen of Colorado Springs, CO., numerous nieces and a nephew and by her best friend, Joyce Richardson of Beaumont, Texas.
Mom graduated from Texas State College for Women, now Texas Women’s University in Denton, Texas with a degree in English. She was an avid reader all of her life and was a master at Scrabble and Up Words, games she loved to play with her sister, Peggy. Well into her 80’s she worked crossword puzzles in ink. She loved to listen to the Big Band songs of her youth and loved to sing and dance to that music. Some of our fondest memories of her were the Sunday afternoons when she and Daddy would roll back the throw rug, turn on the big band music of Glenn Miller, and teach us how to dance. After graduation from college, she taught school in Orange, Texas until the outbreak of World War II, at which time she joined Consolidated Steel Ship Building Company in Orange. After the war, she met Draper Purcell who had just returned from the Philippines and they were married August 31, 1946 at St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Orange. Theirs was the first wedding for whom the new bell at the church was rung. After several years as a home maker, mom returned to teaching at Anderson Elementary School in Orange in 1954 where she taught 5th Grade until 1967. During that time, she was selected for membership in Delta Kappa Gamma and was named Teacher of the Year in the Orange Public Schools. Over the next several years she taught 4th Grade at Bancroft Elementary School and Oates Elementary School.
Mother loved her students and even into her 80’s could name most of them and could tell you where they sat in her classroom. While raising three kids, running a household, and teaching school, she earned her Master’s Degree in Elementary Education, learned to swim and dive and got her driver’s license, all in her 40’s. After traveling across the United States and Canada with Bechtel Construction Company, Mom and Dad retired to Washington State in the early 1980’s and lived there until Dad died in 1990, at which time she moved to Beaumont, Texas to be closer to family. There she became active in St. Mark’s Episcopal Church where she folded church bulletins each Friday with Joyce Richardson and looked forward to working on the annual chili supper. Mom held weekly word game tournaments and bridge parties with her sister Peggy, read hundreds of books, and entertained friends. Brain surgery and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease made it necessary for Mom to move to Virginia in 2005 where she spent the rest of her life being loved and taken care of by her children.
During her life, our mother touched hundreds if not thousands of lives and did so with grace, intelligence, wit, and dignity. We are thankful that she now has all of those things back. She never missed the opportunity to send a relative or friend a card on special occasions or to express her sadness at the loss of a loved one. She genuinely cared about people and was a real sentimentalist. She passed on to her children a love of history, books and travel. She was fortunate in her later life to be able to travel to England, Ireland, Mexico and Hawaii, and to travel on Mississippi River Boat and Caribbean cruises with family and friends. Mother had a long, wonderful life surrounded by people who respected, loved, and cared for her.
As her children, we are grateful to God for the opportunity to have had her as our mother for so long, to have been loved and taught by her, and to have had the great privilege of caring for her as she did for us. Our family would like to thank Kenny Blanda and the staff of Magnolia Manor in Groves, as well as the staff of Birch Gardens Assisted Living Center in Staunton, Virginia for the compassion, skill and care they showed Mother during her stays there. We are also grateful to Mother’s Texas care givers Gloria Zumo, Sue Hebert, Kathie Simian and her best friend, Joyce Richardson for loving Mother and taking such good care of her. Finally we would like to acknowledge Regina Rogers for her support of cancer survivors through the Julie Rogers Gift of Life Program, and the affection and support she showed our mother.
In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate donations in Mother’s memory to either the Julie Rogers Gift of Life Program in Beaumont, Texas or to the Scholarship Fund of the Hazel and Floyd Mack Scout Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 21494; Beaumont, Texas 77720.
"One hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, or how much money I had in the bank, but the world may be a better place because I made a difference in a child's life." Author unknown
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