Jean Katherine Spies Crone

Jean Katherine Spies Crone passed away Wednesday, March 15, 2013, after a graceful life at the age of 89. She was born January 25, 1924, in Fort Worth, Texas, to Edna and Chester Boeck Spies of Creston, Iowa, and Winslow, Ark. Jean attended the University of Arkansas where she was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. She met her future husband, Richard D. Crone, MD, when she transferred to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Widowed at the age of 38, Jean enrolled in the University of Georgia where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a fine arts degree. During that time, one of her student art pieces was exhibited at the Smithsonian. She returned to her childhood home in Winslow in 1978 after her son had restored the original homestead, thereafter building a beautiful passive solar residence of her own design. Her active life was one of volunteerism and true giving, whether it was her family, her church, Our Lady of the Ozarks, or organizations including the Winslow Public Library, the Ozarks Crafts Guild, the Ozark Society, the Native Plant Society, Friends of Devils Den and Friends of Lake Wedington. An accomplished conservator, she devoted skilled restorations and maintenance to the last two organizations, where her father had been employed by the CCC and WPA as a construction foreman during the Great Depression. She is survived by her sister Mary Elizabeth Droste of San Antonio, Texas, and two nephews, Bruce Droste and Peter Droste; her three children, John V. Crone of Fayetteville, Ark., Anne Saxon Hersh of New York City and Fleischmanns, N.Y.; and Katherine Jean Christie of San Francisco, Calif.; three grandsons, Chris, Ben, and Jon Crone; and four great-grandchildren, Izabel, Kolson, Beckham, and Lily Crone. Online condolences: www.beardsfuneralchapel.com.