Jean M. Granger

Jean Morrow Granger, 1937-2017 Jean Morrow Granger was born on August 19, 1939 to the late John H. and Ann Rowena Morrow in Newark, New Jersey. She passed on August 29, 2017 of natural causes at Regents Point, in Irvine, California. The memorial services will be held at Fairhaven Memorial Park and Mortuary, 1702 Fairhaven Avenue, Santa Ana, CA at twelve noon on Saturday, September 30, 2017. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Best Friends Animal Society. In her early years in Bordentown, NJ, Jean was a tomboy who, even in her late teens, as a Girl Scout camp counselor, was very athletic. In 1945 the family moved south where they lived on the campuses of the black colleges and universities where her father taught. A brilliant woman, Jean matriculated at Fisk University at the age of fifteen, graduated at nineteen, and earned her Master’s Degree in Social Work from Fordham University at twenty-one. In 1959 the entire family moved for a year to the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, where her father served as the first American Ambassador. In 1960 Jean became a practicing social worker, first in New York, and then in New Jersey with the Bureau of Children’s Welfare, where she rapidly rose to the position of supervisor in Orange, NJ. There she married Lloyd M. Granger on September 13, 1969. In 1970 they departed Jersey for the warmer climes of southern California, from which they vowed never to return after buying a house in Huntington Beach. After serving as a hospital social worker, Jean joined the faculty of the School of Social Work at California State University, Long Beach, where she served on the faculty for thirty-six years until her retirement as professor at the age of seventy. After joining the professoriate, she earned her doctorate in Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. Long a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Council on Social Work Education, Jean was a superlative teacher and mentor whose legacy remains her many devoted students. After Lloyd’s death from cancer in 2009, Jean moved from Huntington Beach to the retirement community of Regents Point in Irvine, where she served as Chair of the Program Committee and a member of the Health and Wellness Committee. She was an Alumna member of the Orange County Chapter of the Links, Incorporated. Jean is survived by her younger brother John, a niece and nephew and grandniece, and two step-daughters, step-grandchildren, and step-great grandchildren. She loved cats and during her time in California owned four, three at one time