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Dawn Home
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Last update: December 30, 2022
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Jeanne Phyllis Wright passed away peacefully of natural causes at approximately 9:00 pm PST on Tuesday, December 7, 2021, at her home in Redlands, California. She led a life of unflinching integrity, continual search for truth, wisdom, and excellence in all things, and unselfish service to God and to others. Hers was truly a purpose-driven life. Jeanne was born on January 4, 1935, in segregated Baltimore, Maryland, the second of seven children, to Rev. Eugene Thomas and Mrs. Eursilla Maranatha Grove. Her father was the pastor of Grace Memorial Baptist Church in Baltimore, and her mother was a devoted homemaker and talented seamstress. Always a quiet, shy, and introspective child, as well as a voracious reader, Jeanne was a model student throughout her primary and secondary education, eventually graduating from Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in 1952 as class salutatorian. One of her teachers was the daughter of civil rights author and activist W.E.B. DuBois. Despite her shyness, Jeanne also ran successfully for a post in Dunbar High's student government, in which her campaign committee rightfully advertised her as "Tall, Tan, and Terrific."
Jeanne was the very first of her family to venture away from Baltimore, leaving initially for Washington, DC to attend Howard University for her freshman year, while awaiting admission to Wheaton College in Illinois (often billed as "the Harvard of Christian liberal arts colleges"). For her sophomore year, she did transfer successfully to Wheaton. Jeanne was part of a small cadre of Black students that were openly admitted and welcomed, even as segregation and racial inequity continued to vex American society writ large. Jeanne thrived at Wheaton and majored in speech under the tutelage of the popular and treasured professor Eleanor Paulson. Her senior-year speech recital, in which she took the role of Joan of Arc (Jeanne D'Arc in French), was so captivating that it was one of the few to have a full-page photo featured in the college yearbook. Mrs. Edith Edman, first lady of Wheaton College as wife of then President V. Raymond Edman, was in attendance that night. Jeanne's recital was based directly on the 1951 book The Halo on the Sword by Mary Purcell, and the 1946 play-within-a-play Joan of Lorraine by Maxwell Anderson. As an aside, one of Jeanne's favorite actresses, Ingrid Bergman, won the very first best-actress Tony Award in 1947 for her performance in this same play on Broadway. She then went on to give an Academy-award-nominated performance in Victor Fleming's 1948 film adaptation of the play, simply entitled Joan of Arc.
After graduating from Wheaton in 1956, Jeanne immediately ventured out to Brookings, South Dakota, to pursue graduate studies at South Dakota State University. She was in the first cohort of students within a new speech program there, worked as a graduate assistant in the speech department, and in 1958 completed a Master of Science in Language Skills. Next came a steady succession of teaching posts in speech at Morningside College (Sioux City, Iowa), South Carolina State University (Orangeburg, South Carolina), Hampton City Schools (Hampton, Virginia), Morgan State University (Baltimore, Maryland), the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), and the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (Honolulu). These were followed by a long stint at Maui Community College (1968-1976) where she single-handedly developed the college's first speech communication program, as well as its participation in a Pacific-wide education program via a NASA satellite (long before distance education became standard fare in higher education). During that period, she also taught at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California for one year as part of a faculty exchange. Jeanne eventually found her way into college administration, ultimately ascending to Director of Institutional Professional Development at Anne Arundel Community College near Annapolis, Maryland. In 1999, the North American Council for Staff, Program and Organizational Development (NCSPOD) awarded her the John Fry Northeast Regional Individual Merit Award for Outstanding Contributions to Staff Development. Upon Jeanne's retirement in 2002, Anne Arundel Community College planted a Dawn Redwood tree on its campus to honor her 25 years of service to that community. Throughout her career, Jeanne was consistently described by her colleagues, deans, and presidents as "charming, intelligent, conscientious, highly competent, capable, effective, innovative, well-respected, highly regarded, and a joy to work with."
A particular joy in her life was her extremely close relationship with her only child, daughter Dawn Jeannine Wright (b. 1961; fathered by Robert Theodore Wright, 1937-2010, to whom Jeanne was married from 1960-1972). Jeanne and Dawn shared a common passion for nature (especially by way of the national parks), dogs and horses, Native American artwork and true history, classic movies and movie theaters, British TV dramas and murder mysteries, Julie Andrews, Wheaton College (where Dawn graduated too), Dodger baseball, and all things Disney.
Jeanne is preceded in death by all of her siblings save for her brother, James Anthony (Tony) Grove and sister-in-law Katie Grove. She is survived by her daughter Dawn, Dawn's golden retriever Riley, and a number of relatives and friends to whom she was a continual blessing and inspiration throughout her life. Jeanne Wright left a legacy of charm, strength, sheer purity and goodness, and the sincerest of love and caring for everyone she encountered. She truly lived a beautiful, purpose-driven life, always "trusting in the Lord with all her heart; leaning not to her own understanding, but in all her ways acknowledging Him, who always directed her paths" (after Proverbs 3:5-6).
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Last update: December 30, 2022 |