Jean Baskett Mehrle

Jean Baskett Mehrle, 103, passed away on Sunday, August 13, 2023 in Evansville, IN. She was born in Evansville on October 30, 1919, to the late Robert Walker Baskett, Sr., and Marietta (Speer) Baskett.

A seventh-generation native of the Tristate region, Jean grew up in Evansville and Pleasant Ridge, MI. She cherished memories of childhood summers spent on Walloon Lake in Michigan, where she developed a love of nature and the outdoors. Jean fostered a similar, lifelong affection for animals through many visits to her grandparents in Kentucky. While living on Riverside Drive, she attended old Central High School, matriculating afterward to Evansville College.

Jean’s reputation as an excellent writer and college student was only matched by that of her vivacious social life. In her later decades, she would recall finding herself at the center of school dances, where others would circle around and clap for her. After graduating in the midst of World War II, she worked in the aviation industry, going so far as to learn to pilot a plane herself. She later worked as an executive secretary at Deaconess Hospital, where she was the primary liaison with medical residents, until retiring in 1994 after two decades of service.

Across the span of her life, Jean maintained a well-known vitality in mind, body, and spirit. She believed that intellectual curiosity, exercise, and a thoughtful spirituality were all closely interlinked and mutually reinforcing. To that end, Jean celebrated her eightieth birthday with a whitewater-rafting trip and enjoyed tai chi and books on theoretical physics well into her hundreds. For the entirety of her life, she possessed an unusual clarity of mind, much to the awe of all who knew her.

Jean was a fiercely devoted mother to her three children, Nancy Sue, John, and Jean, and sister to her three siblings. Her loved ones remember fondly how she and her sister Sue would goad one another into fitful laughter simply by making eye contact, and the two delighted in sharing stories of getting into trouble together as young girls. Jean and her older brother Bob enjoyed nightly phone calls until he passed away in 2020, and family members knew to expect hilarious theatrics whenever she and her younger brother, Hank, would get together.

Later in life, upon becoming a grandmother, Jean dedicated herself deeply to the role. Her children knew she could be relied on to assist them day or night, and her four

grandchildren, Brandon, James, Alexandra, and Katherine, looked forward with glee to any time spent in the company of their “Gram.”

Jean was preceded in death by her parents; two brothers, Robert Walker Baskett, Jr., and Henry Clay Baskett; a sister, Sue Baskett Engelbrecht; a niece, Amy Gregory Baskett Kayes; and a nephew, James Lex Baskett.

She is survived by two daughters, Nancy Sue Baskett Mehrle and Jean Speer Mehrle Hitchcock (David) of Evansville; a son, Arthur John Mehrle III of Bloomington; and four grandchildren, Brandon Waltman (Katy) and James, Alexandra, and Katherine Hitchcock. In addition, she leaves two adoring great-grandchildren, Joey and Maryjane Linton-Waltman, and many loving nieces and nephews.

A Private Family Service will be held at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at Alexander East Chapel officiated by Rev. Anna von Winckler. Burial will follow at Oak Hill Cemtery. A Private Visitation will be held from 11:00 a.m. until service time at the funeral home.

Condolences may be offered at www.AlexanderEastChapel.com.