Willis, Rev. Jean E. 1923-2012

WILLIS, HARDIE, CORBETT, MCGARVEY, STOLITSKY, BRASINGTON, OBAYASHI, HUEBSCH, BARTOW, SEIZ

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 2/24/2021 at 11:56:28

Jean Willis
1923 - 2012
Des Moines

The Reverend Jean E. Willis, 89, passed away on January 25, 2012, at Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines after a short illness. The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, January 27, at the Iles Funeral Home-Dunn's Chapel. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, January 28, at the Cathedral Church of St Paul. A private burial will be held at Mowrer Cemetery in Perry, Iowa.

Jean Elaine Hardie Willis was born to Irene Corbett Hardie and David Herrett Hardie on January 11, 1923, in Menominee, Michigan. She first lived in Galena, Illinois, before moving to Freeport, Illinois. Her background in these two historic cities made her a lifelong scholar of U.S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln. She was inspired to a life of social service by the example of Jane Adams, who grew up in the Freeport area, and she attended public schools there, graduating from Freeport High School in 1941. During high school, she was active in drama, debate, and speech and won the national championship in radio poetry reading in 1940. She graduated from the University of Iowa, where she belonged to Kappa Alpha Theta, Mortar Board, Zeta Phi Eta, and Phi Beta Kappa.

She married Ned Willis of Perry, Iowa, on July 16, 1944, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Iowa City, and moved with him to many army bases as he trained to be a B-25 pilot. After he returned from wartime duties in the Army Air Force in Europe, they lived in Iowa City, where he completed law school. They then lived in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh while he worked as an FBI agent, moving to Perry in 1948, where Ned practiced law until his death in 1998. She founded a child study group and summer movie program that kept the couple's four children active. With the late Billie Harvey of Adel, she was a co-founder of the original Perry Nursery School in 1952. She was also a co-founder in Iowa of Mothers for Peace in the 1960's and Grandmothers for Peace in the 1990's. In 1975, she was selected "Iowa Mother of the Year."

Mrs. Willis worked as a speech and language clinician from the early 1960's until 1979, when she went to New York to attend General Theological Seminary to fulfill her dream of becoming an Episcopal priest. After graduation in 1983, she was ordained as one of the first women priests in Iowa and served churches in Storm Lake, Winterset, West Des Moines (St Timothy's), and the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, where she was the first woman Canon. During her years in Storm Lake, she fostered the birth of All Saints' Church from its quonset hut beginnings to a beautiful new lakeside building, the first church built in Iowa for the Episcopal Diocese in thirty-five years. At the Cathedral, she introduced Centering Prayer to Des Moines, founded the Center for Spirituality, and was active in pastoral care.

She was preceded in death by her husband of more than 50 years, Ned Willis of Perry, and her long time companion in Des Moines from South of Grand, Neil McGarvey; as well as her sister Mary Ellen Stolitsky; nephew David Stolitsky; and grandson James Brasington. She is survived by her four children: David (Mika Obayashi) Willis of Sunnyvale CA, Mary (Mark) Huebsch of Irvine, CA, Rebecca (Tom) Bartow of Marshfield, WI, and Eliza (Janet Seiz) Willis of Iowa City, IA; two nieces; eleven grandchildren; and two great granddaughters.

Memorial contributions may be directed in her name to the Good Samaritan Fund or for Liturgy and Worship at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, the University of Iowa Foundation, or the Des Moines Public Library.

To Plant Memorial Trees in memory, please visit our Sympathy Store. ~ The Des Moines (IA) Register 29 Jan 2012.