Jean Anne Merritt Casey of Hennessey died June 28, 2016, after a brief illness. She was 81 years old. Funeral services are 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 6, 2016 at First United Methodist Church in Hennessey. Reverend Dr. Jim Hill and Reverend Andrew Long and Rev. Dr. Robyn Groogs Revfwill officiate. Arrangements are under the direction of Henninger-Hinson Funeral Home.
Jean Anne was born Jan. 23, 1935, in Enid to Eugene and Berniece Holmes Merritt, the first of three daughters. She attended Enid public schools and graduated from Enid High School in 1953. She received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Oklahoma in 1957. At OU, she was president of her Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.
After college, Jean Anne lived in Palo Alto, California, where daughter Anne was born; Summit, New Jersey, where son Mike was born; and Durham, North Carolina. Jean Anne received a master’s of arts in liberal studies in 1990 from Duke University. While in Durham, she also operated a successful stationery business, Casey & Company. She was a member of the Junior League in Summit and in Durham.
In each of the communities where she lived, church was important to Jean Anne. She was confirmed in the First Methodist Church in Enid as a teenager. In New Jersey, she was a deacon and an active member of women’s groups at Central Presbyterian Church in Summit. In North Carolina, she was a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Durham.
After her marriage ended, Jean Anne returned to Oklahoma. In 1990, she settled in Hennessey, not far from where her grandparents homesteaded in the Run of ’89. Working with her sisters, Jean Anne helped manage farming operations that included wheat, cattle, alfalfa and a new growth pecan grove. Coming to the pecan business late in life, she was honored to receive Grower of the Year Award from the Oklahoma Pecan Growers Association in 2006.
In Hennessey, she joined the First United Methodist Church and took part in multiple church and community projects. She was a founding board member of Hennessey 2010 (now Hennessey United), a civic betterment association. She was active in the Friends of the Library. She volunteered at the Hennessey public schools and was a regular attendee at town board meetings.
Her work in Hennessey bore witness to Jean Anne’s love for her adopted hometown, to her sense of her obligation to act as a good steward of the earth and its resources, and to her belief that small groups of hard-working people can make a big difference.
Jean Anne was preceded in death by her parents and brother-in-law, Dick Autry. She is survived by her sisters, Virginia Autry of Enid and Mary Catherine Berta and husband, Bill of Sun City West, Arizona, as well as her children, Anne Jones of Kennesaw, Georgia, and Mike Casey and wife, Nancy of Scottsdale, Arizona. Also left to cherish Jean Anne’s memory are four grandchildren and four nieces.
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