Dean Jeanblanc

The Rev. Dean Baylor Jeanblanc - SAVANNAH - The Rev. Dean Baylor Jeanblanc, age 79, died on October 31, 2012. He was born in Illinois, son of Charles Wesley and Justina Kate Jeanblanc of Lee Center, Illinois. He received degrees from Blackburn College, Illinois Wesleyan University, Drew University and Syracuse University. He was Honorably Retired from the Presbyterian Church, USA. His early ministry included building new churches in New Jersey before moving to urban parishes in Albany, NY and Utica, NY. In mid-career, after teaching sixth grade for three years while doing graduate work, he became a professor of sociology and anthropology at Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica. He was made Professor Emeritus upon his retirement. Professor Jeanblanc did a research study on the migration of large numbers of members of the Old Order Amish from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana to St. Lawrence County in northern New York State, and he was in demand as a speaker on this subject. During his twenty-plus years of college teaching, he was still active in ministry, serving as an interim pastor in over half of the churches in the Utica Presbytery. For four years, he served as President of United Ministries of Higher Education in New York State, and he was a board member of that organization for fifteen years. He was deeply involved in the civil rights movement and attended The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. After his retirement from college teaching, Dean returned to full-time ministry, coming to Savannah in 1990 to be pastor of John Knox Presbyterian Church on Waters Avenue. He led the congregation to a merger with First Presbyterian Church. Following the merger, he did interim work at African-American churches in the Savannah area for several years. In recent years, Dean served as President for five years of the Ligon Family and Kinsmen Association, a group of Americans who are descended either from Col. Thomas Ligon who came from England to Jamestown, Virginia in 1641 or from other members of the Lygon family in England. This family has lived in Madresfield Court, a moated manor house on four thousand acres, for one thousand years. There have been eight earls in the family. The family and the house were used as models in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited. Dean and his wife Anne have lived at the Landings since 1990, and he greatly enjoyed the beauty and friendships and amenities of the community, especially playing tennis. Besides his wife, to whom he was married in 1982, he leaves the following children: Deborah Lynn Jeanblanc of Delaware, Ohio, Dr. William Dean Jeanblanc of West Bath, Maine, Wesley Jeanblanc of Key West, Florida, Michael Timothy Lockwood and his wife Dr. Kimberly of Miamisburg, Ohio, and Joshua Willis Lockwood and his husband Robert Barry of New York, New York. His three grandchildren are Carlin Leila Lockwood, Sophie Dowling Lockwood, and Theodore Timothy Lockwood. His brother Howard Jeanblanc also survives him. There will be a memorial service at a later date at Messiah Lutheran Church on Skidaway Island. LowCountryCremation.com 877-553-0997 Savannah Morning News November 1, 2012 Please sign our Obituary Guest Book at savannahnow.com/obituaries.