Lillie Jewel Chase

11/20/1920 – 1/14/2014

Lillie Jewel Ward was born on a small farm in North Texas, the eldest of nine children. Her parents, Thomas and Stella Ward, were hard-working people and devout Christians, who faced up to hard times with grit and perseverance. During Jewel’s childhood, her next- born sister, Zelma, nearly died from pneumonia; their father eventually lost his farm to pay doctor’s bills, and the family was forced to move to the grandparents’ farm.

Life was hardscrabble, and conveniences were few. Jewel’s mother drew water for the family’s needs from a well. Clothes were made from seed-sack cloth. Everyone had to work to keep the family afloat. Jewel milked the cows before breakfast, and walked miles to get to school- when she could go. Jewel ploughed the fields with a team of horses in the spring, helped with weeding and other field work in all seasons. As the eldest of the family, she supervised the younger children as they worked the land. The fall harvest pre-empted the classroom for two or three months of the year. Walking the furrows, picking (prickly!) bolls of cotton, was tough on her hands, but there was a silver lining: Jewel’s father paid his kids a small stipend per bundle of picked cotton, which they could use to purchase store-bought (!) clothes.

Although her parents had only grade-school educations, Jewel resolved to graduate from high school, and she studied with determination (and a flickering lantern) after nightfall. She succeeded so well that she was Salutatorian, second in her class, just behind the school superintendent’s daughter. She won a scholarship, which she used to underwrite a year’s study in business/secretarial school.

When Jewel began her secretarial career, she boarded in a nearby town. Mindful of her family, she bought them their first refrigerator and made the earliest payments on it. She worked (at different times) for the District Attorney and for the Texas Liquor Control Board. By 1942, she happily gained the companionship of her sister Zelma with her in town.

Airfields sprouted in Texas during the early years of World War II, and cadets came from all over America to learn to fly. One of them was George W. Chase, who was born in the Bronx, far from Texas. He was sent to Vernon, Texas, for his primary flight training; there, he joined the other cadets for snacks at the local drugstore, where Zelma was cashier. Zelma liked George best of all the cadets, and she arranged for Jewel to meet him.

Jewel and George got along well, but went their separate ways when George got his wings. He next trained as pilot for the B-26 bomber, at Lubbock Army Air Force base. By chance, Jewel was also transferred to Lubbock. They ran into each other, and resumed their romance; when George departed for war, Jewel promised to write.

By the time that George returned, a veteran of 66 bombing missions, in September 1944, they were engaged. He went straight to Texas, where they were married at the Lubbock Army Air base. Next was a honeymoon in Atlantic City, NJ, then to New York City, where Jewel met the Chase family, and had an excursion to Niagara Falls. Upon returning to duty, George was posted as a flight instructor in Marianna, Florida, where they lived for a year.

When the war was over and George discharged, they moved to New York City, and into the St. Albans house belonging to George’s parents (George S. and Florence Chase). They shared this house for four years, until Jewel and George purchased their own first home, in nearby Cambria Heights.

Once she had arrived in New York, Jewel quickly did two things: she located and joined the nearest Church of Christ, and she resumed her secretarial career. She remained a devoted member of the Church for her entire life, and formed many friendships there over the decades. She loved the Church and its people, and its tenets were always her guiding principles.

She was secretary at several businesses in Manhattan until 1949, when, finally, her first child was born. Thomas Sumner Chase was a difficult baby, which sadly foreshadowed a life tragically marred by mental illness. Thomas was still living with his parents when he suddenly died in January 2001, exactly thirteen years before his mother.

Jewel’s daughter Pamela Jean was born in 1953. Four years later, the family purchased their second home, in Whitestone, where [in 2014] Jewel died in the same bedroom that she had occupied for 55 years.

Through her elementary school years, Pamela enjoyed having weekday lunches with her mother at home, and she was not entirely pleased when her mother returned to the paid workforce. Around 1965, Jewel took a job as an electrocardiogram technician at Flushing Hospital, and she thrived there. Her boss, Jerri Cohick, became a close friend, and the two shopped together regularly. When Jerri retired, around 1980, she nominated Jewel as her successor as Supervisor of the ECG Department. The Hospital confirmed this choice, and Jewel remained Supervisor until her own retirement in 1988.

After her retirement, Jewel focused on her garden (her tomatoes were legendary) and the Church. She also served as secretary to George’s floor-waxing business, typing out bills and taking calls. She visited her family in Texas as often as possible, but Tommy’s illness limited her freedom.

George worked until his 85th birthday. By that time, he was suffering from pancreatitis, which would lead to his death in 2005. Alone, in widowhood, Jewel renewed and deepened her ties to the Church. But as she continued aging, she lost independence and had declining health. Pamela, living nearby, took on a number of supporting roles. By 2012, Jewel needed 24-hour caregiving. Her home health aides, Odette and Jackie, both kind-hearted and effective people, described Jewel as remarkably calm and pleasant. Jackie was holding Jewel’s hand as she died; she later told Pamela, “your mother was the sweetest person I’ve ever known”.

Jewel’s survivors include Pamela; son-in-law Patrick; step-grandson Kenneth, and his wife Laara; step-great-granddaughter Keila; sisters Zelma, Janice, Nora, and Beth; brothers Jimmy and James; and many (both Jewel’s and George’s) nieces and nephews.