Jean S. Meyer

Jean Meyer, a talented Connecticut artist, illustrator and author, died Saturday May 22, 2021 at her son's home in Charlottesville VA, surrounded by family. She was 91 years of age. A long time resident of East Haddam, she is best known locally for her magnificent, bright and colorful mural of children's stories that graces the downstairs children's reading room of the Rathbun Library. She is survived by her 5 children, Rebecca, Sarah (Claude), Jeff (Viv), Rachel (Warren) and William (Kit) and 5 grandchildren, Tyler (25), Ryan (23), Anna (18), Abby (16), and Kai (15). In 2018 she lost the love of her life, retired Wesleyan history professor Donald B. Meyer, to cancer. He was 94 years old and had been married to Jean for 53 years. "Your mother is a remarkable woman," Donald used to tell us kids. And she was: illustrating dozens of children's books, weekly readers, textbooks and cookbooks, and creating hundreds of paintings and sketches capturing everything from the local charm of the Hadlyme Ferry to the sheen of rainfall on the exotic domes of Venice. In 1959, while living for a time in Williamsburg, Virginia, she wrote "Arthur and the Golden Guinea," a children's book filled with gorgeous illustrations of everyday life in that town during colonial times. And in 1976 she compiled 60 pages of her grandmother's handwritten recipes into the lovely "Abbie D.'s Cookbook," replete with ink drawings of cast iron stoves and sparkling canning jars filled to the brim with fruit. But the really remarkable thing about Jean was that she accomplished all of these things while raising 5 children. Jean Allison Shepherd was born in September, 1929 in her grandparents' home in Linwood, near Ocean City, New Jersey. She grew up near Philadelphia, and spent summers in Linwood. Surrounded by books, she loved learning about the world and yearned to travel. She graduated from Syracuse University in 1951, and immediately went off to Paris with a group of friends. When she returned she found work in New York City with an advertising agency and roomed with her close friends in a small studio apartment with no kitchen. The young ladies had to wash their dishes in the bathroom sink. The following year, Jean married Keith Berwick, who had graduated from Syracuse with a degree in History. She and Keith lived for a time on a farm in Oneida NY, where she worked for the Oneida Community Silver Co., and Keith joined the Air Force, stationed at Hancock Field. They grew so many tomatoes on the farm that they ran out of friends to receive the harvest! After moving to Chicago, Jean did graduate work in fine arts at the Art Institute of Chicago. She gave birth to twins Rebecca and Sarah in 1957. In the summer of 1959 the family of four moved to Williamsburg, VA. Keith finished his doctoral thesis, and went on to UCLA, so the young family was off to Los Angeles by fall. In 1960 Jeff was born and in 1962 Rachel became the youngest of the 4 Berwick kids. Jean and Keith divorced, and in 1965 Jean married her dearest love, Donald Meyer. In 1966, when her kids were only 4 to 8 years old, Jean and Don packed up and left for Europe for six months, on a shoestring budget. The eldest kids went to school in Paris while Donald did research, and Jean towed her toddlers around Paris while painting and sketching. In 1967 Donald got a full professorship at Wesleyan University, and the family moved to East Haddam, where they restored a colonial home built in 1800. Youngest son William was born that summer in New Haven. Jean oversaw the restoration of the old home, and she insisted on historical accuracy. During the restoration, she discovered the original hearth and brick oven in the center of the house, hidden by paneling. The house was brought back to its colonial splendor, and filled with antiques. Jean became active in East Haddam school boards, advocating for more classes in language, art and music. Her children were especially lucky to have the opportunity to live and travel in Europe while Donald was granted sabbaticals in 1966, 1970, 1976 and 1982. Jean loved good wine and company, throwing many dinner parties in our old house with hand made hors d'oeuvres, home baked bread and delicious roasts, casseroles and desserts from scratch. Jean had a great sense of humor, and loved a good pun (much to our chagrin). She was particularly fond of Patsy Cline and would burst into song whenever she was happy. She was nearly unbeatable in Scrabble and enjoyed playing Bridge with friends. What kept the whole crazy home together was Jean's very deep love for Donald that seemed to grow stronger as they both got older. Jean and Don lived in the house in East Haddam together for 51 years, loving life and traveling to Portugal, Mexico, the Caribbean and England after all the kids had left for college. When Donald passed away in 2018, Jean somehow found the courage and strength to carry on. Her innate sense of curiosity and passion for creating brought her back to her art. As a result, she produced an impressive body of new and experimental watercolors of flowers, parrots, butterflies and bugs. Her artwork and her family were her entire focus through her last years on Earth. She gave a well received art exhibition in the Rathbun Library in 2019 and was truly happy. We miss our remarkable Mom deeply. In lieu of flowers, please make a Memorial contribution to the Friends of the Rathbun Library in Jean S. and Donald B. Meyer's name. Contact friendsofrathbunlibrary@gmail.com or visit https://www.facebook.com/FriendsOfRathbunLibrary