Jean Carpenter DeVos

Our dear mother, Jean Carpenter DeVos, passed away on July 31st, 2025 at the age of 96.

Jean was born on March 6, 1929 at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, to Hildur and Charles Carpenter. She had a happy childhood in suburban Scarsdale, NY, playing with other children in their beautiful neighborhood, roaming the family’s backyard orchard, and dreaming up ways to torture her younger brother, Charles Jr., under the guise of performing “scientific experiments.” One of the highlights of her teenage years was a summer-long road trip with her parents and brother, during which they visited almost every state in the continental US.

Mom adored horses, and had a precocious ability to draw them in perfect proportion from the age of six, despite having no art training. At age 10 she decided that she wanted to write and illustrate her own horse books when she grew up. At age 82 she wrote a short autobiography for her 60th college reunion book, saying “Life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan, but hopefully we learn and grow during our journeys.” Mom did just that.

As a teenager, Jean volunteered at the White Plains Hospital, the Burke Rehabilitation Center in White Plains, and the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. She was a camp counselor at Pocono Manor, in PA. As an adult she volunteered at the Children’s Outpatient Clinic at Grasslands Hospital in Valhalla, NY (now Westchester Medical Center), and was on the Board of Directors of the White Plains Mental Health Association.

She graduated from The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, NY and received her bachelor’s degree in art history from Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA (the closest she could get to a fine arts degree). She remained lifelong friends with many of her Wellesley buddies, exchanging newsy cards with them, visiting them, and joining them for mini-reunions. After Wellesley, she pursued graduate work at Harvard University where she met and married Marc DeVos, and had two daughters.

Her marriage ended seven years later and she raised her children on $75 a week, without a car. She found a centrally located apartment in Hartsdale, NY and the family walked everywhere. In Mom’s words “We were happy in those lean years, and I learned that I was capable of more than I had imagined.”

Jean joined the Hitchcock Presbyterian Church in Scarsdale, NY and was a member of the choir from 1960-1970. She taught nursery school there for two years, then worked part-time as a secretary at Midgley-Parks, Steinkamp & Britton Real Estate in Scarsdale for five years. In 1965 a friend got her a secretarial job at Reichhold Chemicals in White Plains, NY, where she worked for 23 years. She appreciated the 10-minute commute and the ability to get to her children quickly if needed. Her final employer was the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center Psychiatric Division in White Plains, NY, where she worked as secretary to the Director of the Children’s Division for a year and then as a transcriptionist in the Medical Records Office for six years. She enjoyed the office camaraderie and made good friends at both Reichhold and the hospital, creating wonderful parties to celebrate her co-workers’ birthdays, marriages and the births of their children. She put both daughters through college, and retired in 1995.

In 1974, Jean joined the New York Bible Students Church, an ecclesia of the International Bible Students Association. Jean made many friends while attending weekly, local Bible study groups as well as nationwide conventions, driving her fellow students to meetings on the East Coast and around the country. She had a thirst for knowledge and read their thick tomes copiously, her curious mind always seeking more spiritual truths. She was inspired, humbled, and grateful for the Bible Students’ teachings and companionship, and was baptized at their national convention in Albion, MI in the summer of 1980.

Our mother joined the Scarsdale-Hartsdale Newcomers’ Club after retirement, making new friends and enjoying classes and outings around Westchester County. She spent much of her retirement visiting her daughters at their homes in CT, brandishing pruning shears in our gardens as well as helping us to decorate our homes. She happily spent hours finding the perfect spot for each newly acquired piece of furniture or wall art. Her artistic nature was evident throughout her life, between decorating her apartment for Christmas on a shoestring, or writing perfect, tiny poems as clues to each and every exquisitely wrapped birthday and Christmas gift she ever gave us.

Both during her working years and especially once she had retired, Jean enjoyed many visits with her daughters or friends to the Bronx Zoo, the NY Botanical Garden, local nature centers, and the Pepsico sculpture gardens. She also got a big kick out of attending dog shows, in both Westchester County and northwestern Connecticut. In 2004, to celebrate her 75th birthday, Jean and her daughters took a bus tour of Great Britain, which was a memorable family trip.

Jean was a wonderful mother and friend; generous, kind, caring and always there for us, offering support and advice. She had many local friends from her various jobs as well as Bible Student friends around the country, and she corresponded with everyone. Her generosity to others, despite having little herself, was a life lesson for us. She drove friends all over Westchester and the Bronx to their doctors’ appointments, often taking them out for dinner and a movie afterwards. She was a stickler for proper grammar and helped the nurses and aides with their English and a smattering of Latin at the assisted living and memory care communities where she lived over her last six years. Carpe Diem, she’d tell them. Mom loved beauty in all its forms: art, architecture, classical music, and nature. She was extremely observant of the smallest detail, and would notice things that others often missed. It took forever to walk with her down the long, central hallway at Colebrook Village, because she insisted on stopping to admire the residents’ individual door decorations, exclaiming over each one. We are so grateful to have had her in our lives; she showed us how beauty and love can exist, no matter what the circumstances.

Jean was predeceased by her brother, Charles M. Carpenter II, and leaves behind daughters Jacqueline “Heidi” DeVos and Eva DeVos-Jaggs (Mike) as well as friends both old and new who loved her for her warmth and wit. She will be sorely missed.

Jean’s family wishes to thank the staff at the former One MacDonough Place in Middletown, CT, those at Colebrook Village in Hebron, CT, and the homecare hospice staff at Middlesex Health for their excellent care which gave her safety and happiness in her later years and comfort and peace in her final weeks.