Jean was born November 11, 1928 to Walter W. and Attrice Talley Hudson on the family farm in the Mt. Pisgah Community, where she also attended grammar school. She graduated from Canton High School, class of 1945, and attended North Texas University. Later she graduated with the first dental hygiene class from Tyler Jr. College earning an associate degree with honors.
October, 1945 she married Robert Edwin Ray who was ordained an elder (minister) in the Methodist Church in 1951 after he graduated from Perkins School of Theology S.M.U.
Her years as a homemaker in Methodist Church Parsonages extend from Illinois to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. Children born to them were Richard Lee Ray, Canton (survivor), Stephen Edwin Ray and Patrick Hudson Ray, both deceased. When she returned to Canton, following her husband’s early death (he was 42 and she was 36) in 1965, she received a position in the dental office of Dr. Michael Hackney where she worked for 29 years, and earned an associate degree in dental hygiene. She was the first accredited dental hygienist in Van Zandt County. She was always grateful to Michael and Juanita Hackney for their help and the position which enabled her to rear her then three dependent children.
She is survived by a brother, Billy W. Hudson and his wife Joanna, son, Richard Ray and his wife Paula, Granddaughters Catherine Lee Ray, and Victoria Ray Thatcher and her husband Seth and her great grandchildren, Thomas, Vivian, and Richard Thatcher, sisters-in-law, Marge Dove, Gwen Reaves, nieces and nephews, and cousins.
She preferred that memorials be given to Lighthouse for the Blind in Tyler. Tylerlighthouse.org.
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