Jean Carey Hatch

Jean was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on December 31, 1921 to Raymond Burdette and Myrtle Thompson Carey. She was the third of five children. Jean died at the age of 93 on January 5, 2015.

She grew up in Nebraska during the dust bowl. Her family had difficult times but not as bad as many because her father was a school superintendant , who, although he often was not paid, was supplied with food by local farmers.

Those who have only known Jean later in life might not realize that she was an adventurer and a bit of a secret rebel who cheered on the women’s rights movement.

Jean’s dad, R. B. Carey, sent her off to Business school to learn the womanly arts of typing, shorthand and filing while her brothers all got to go to college so they could study for real careers. She always wished she had a college degree.

However, while she was at her studies in Denver she met George. They met because Jean tagged along with a friend of hers who had a date with George. They went out to a lake where Lila was interested in lying around on the beach while George and Jean swam out to an island to investigate. George saw Jean as the adventurous type that interested him.

They went their separate ways, George to Hawaii and Jean to Washington, D.C. where she worked at what is now the Old Executive Office Building. The war came. George missed Jean and proposed to her over the phone from Hawaii with the censor listening. Thus began her life’s biggest adventure. George got her a job in Hawaii so she qualified to travel there. She took troop trains across our great nation to San Francisco where she waited some weeks for a troop ship headed to Hawaii. She and a few nurses arrived in Hawaii where a military band serenaded them getting off the ship by playing “Pistol Packing Mamas.”

This moment was probably a low point in her life with George. It seems he didn’t know her ship was in and she was left on the dock alone on a distant island where she knew almost nobody. They were married in Honolulu on April 10, 1944 and were able to celebrate their 50th anniversary there.

They lived in Hawaii for a portion of the 1940s and 50s. Jean loved every moment.

Moving to Washington in the 1960s gave her a chance to participate in Women’s rights rallies. But she was always home in time to cook George ‘s dinner.

In Huntsville Alabama she worked for Huntsville Opportunity for the elderly and worked her way up to administrative assistant. She was proud of her Huntsville accomplishment

After retirement Jean reveled in adventurous international travel, venturing to Europe and Africa.

Jean was preceded in death by her husband George Hatch, brother Alan Carey and son-in-law Rodney Dickens. She is survived by children Corinne Friddle, (David) Kathryn Hatch, and William Hatch (Susan) as well as her brothers Robert Carey, Max Carey and sister Doris Chwirka. She has two grandchildren, Jonathan Friddle and Sarah Friddle Thomasson and six great grandchildren.

Jeans ashes will interred next to her Husband, George, in Wesington Springs, South Dakota at a future date.