Jean Hardwick

Luella Jean Hardwick known to all as "Jean Hardwick," died peacefully at home in the Mount Vernon area of Alexandria, Virginia on November 14, 2025. She was 92.

Jean was born and raised on a small family farm in Mossyrock, Washington. After graduating from high school, she attended Seattle Pacific University from 1951 to 1954, where she graduated Cum Laude with a BA degree in education. She began her teaching career in Sumner, Washington where she taught high school and junior high for three years.

Later she began a three-month bicycle tour across Western Europe, which included the countries of West Germany, France, Holland and the United Kingdom. Following her bicycle adventure, Jean continued her career by accepting a high school teaching position at a US Army Dependent School in Schwaebish Gmeund, Germany.

It was there she met her husband, Willis C. Hardwick, who was stationed there while assigned to an Army Field Artillery Battalion. Jean and Willis were married in 1962 at the Battalion Chapel in Schwaebish Gmeund and later moved into quarters at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. During this time, Jean transitioned her kind, loving and gracious self from teaching grade school to becoming an Army Family Homemaker, which was a partnership that lasted over 63 years. After years of Army family life, moving almost every year, raising and caring for two sons, John and Matthew, she and her family settled in Northern Virginia continuing her homemaking life in support of her husband's new career in the Aerospace and Defense Industry following his retirement from the US Army.

In her later years Jean was an active member of the Aldersgate United Methodist Church, where she faithfully joined in the Church's prayer group and the United Methodist Women's Elizabeth Circle, where she frequently led the Circle's Devotion.

She is survived by her husband, Willis C. Hardwick; sons, John and Matthew Hardwick; grandchildren, William Clark Hardwick, Jessica Lynn, Elizabeth Jean, and Katherine Ann Hardwick and sister, April Stager, who resides in Tucson, AZ.

Relatives and friends are invited to a visitation Friday, December 12, 2025, from 4-8 PM at Jefferson Funeral Chapel, 5755 Castlewellan Drive, Alexandria, VA. A funeral service will be held at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, 1301 Collingwood Rd., Alexandria, VA, Saturday December 13, 2025, at 11AM. Interment will be held at Arlington National Cemetery at a later date.