Services celebrating the life of Jeanette D. Neary will be held at 10:30 a.m. Monday, October 21, 2019 at Hill Crest Memorial Chapel with Brother Billy Pierce officiating. Interment will follow in Smackover Cemetery in Smackover, AR at 3:00 p.m. The family will receive friends for visitation on Sunday, October 20, 2019 from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. at the funeral home.
She was born in an elevator in the charity hospital in New Orleans, LA, on November 14th, 1946. She couldn’t wait to get here. She was fortunate to be one of 7 children, and she had a unique and special relationship with each of them. Judy, Dennis, Nick, Najgy, Linda, and Buck were a huge part of her life, and she loved them fiercely. She had not one loving set of parents but two. Fred Downey and Inez Williams Downey McMillian were her birth parents. Her parents divorced when she was very young. Because she was the baby of 5 at the time and Grandmother was a single, working mother, Mom’s aunt and uncle Ivan and Bea Sampson, took little baby Jeannette home to stay with them. Ivan and Bea had no children of their own. They were so smitten that the temporary arrangement became permanent. Mom liked to say that she had the best of both worlds. She was an only child with all of those advantages but had siblings that she loved dearly.
Mom left this earth just the way she wanted to. She went to sleep and didn’t wake up. She had recently been given a diagnosis that was going to be hard. She wasn’t looking forward to all that it would entail. She had prayed, as had we that her heart would take her before she got far down that road. It wasn’t exactly as she planned but close. That being said, I told my sisters that she could have given us a little more notice.
Jeannette was preceded in death by her husband, Lawrence Douglas Neary; parents, Ivan and Bea Sampson; birth parents, Fred Downey and Inez Williams Downey McMillian and brother, Buck McMillian.
She is survived by her daughters, Dawn Treese and husband Robert, Shelley Polk and Shannon Maxwell and husband David; grandchildren, April, Zack, Caleb, Chelsea, Cameron, Connor, Jarred, Jason, Lauren and Garrett; siblings, Judy Wolfe and husband Dick, Dennis Downey and wife Mary Beth, Nick Downey and wife Kay, Najgy McPherson and Linda Taggard and husband Ed. Numerous nieces and nephews also survive her
We are eternally grateful that God gave us to her and hope that if you are reading this that you know she LOVED YOU BIG!
Pallbearers will be Cameron Polk, Conner Polk, Jarred Treese, Jason Treese, John-Michael Boswell and Michael Jenkins. Honorary pallbearers will be grandson, Garrett Bramlett and Jeanette's nephews.
The family would like to thank Dr. Sai Konduru, MD and his nursing staff, especially Elisha for the care and love Jeannette received and the staff of Baylor Hospital in Grapevine, TX for their compassion, professionalism and care of Mom.
