Jacquelyn K. Forthun

1931 - 2022

Jacquelyn K. Forthun

1931-2022

Jacquelyn Kay Sheridan Forthun was born on June 1, 1931, in the small community of Arnold, NE. She spent her earliest days as a farm girl. After her father died in a tractor accident and her mother remarried, she took her step-father's surname and was known as Jackie Farmer. Her family moved to California when she was just a girl, and she loved to tell the story of traveling across the country with her cat in the car. Jackie always had a cat. She attended school in southern California, her favorite subject being art. In 1951, she graduated from John Muir College with an Associates of Arts degree. She met her future husband in college, the dashing Philip Forthun, recently returned from World War II and attending on the GI Bill. They married in 1954 and made a home in Pasadena, CA. After birth of her first daughter, they moved to La Mirada, CA where her second daughter was born four and a half years later.
In 1969, the family relocated to Eureka, CA, where she would live for more than fifty years. Jackie was active in the North Coast community. Over the years, she was a member of the First Congregational Church where she participated in many a Christmas bazaar making hand-sewn ornaments. Later she attended Unity Church of the Redwoods, where she served as treasurer. As suitable in the seventies, she was active in a group called Faculty Wives in support of her husband's work at College of the Redwoods. A decade later, she was one of the first women to serve as President of a Lioness Club. She and her husband were very active in Lions International attending conferences and creating the yearbooks for District 4C2. Jackie loved to sew and made her own evening gowns for the Lions Clubs' fancy dress events, as well as clothes and costumes for her children, often combining patterns for a truly original creation.
She worked many years for Roebuck Truck and Engine as a bookkeeper, a job she loved. After she retired from that, she and her husband opened JK's Gifts 'N Books, a whimsical shop in downtown Eureka that specialized in miniature dollhouse furniture and books for all ages. But over the years, ever creative, Jacquelyn began to revive her love of art and began to take local art classes. She gradually began entering her work in the Humboldt County Fair where she won many ribbons, as well as showing her work at community art events and in juried art exhibits. She began painting landscapes in acrylic and water color, but found she best like working with colored pencils. She began depicting her own cats before branching into a career as a wildlife artist.
In 2020, she moved to Napa, CA to live closer to her youngest daughter. Jacquelyn passed away peacefully on September 18, 2022, at the age of 91. She is predeceased by her parents: Harold Sheridan, Marjorie Kellenbarger Sheridan Farmer, step-father Ray Farmer, and her husband of forty-eight years, Philip Forthun. She is survived by her daughters: Kathryn Duval and husband Chris of Hilo, HI, and their son Yossi Duval of Chico, CA; and Patricia Dake and her husband Brian of Napa, CA, and their children Laura Dake of West Sacramento, CA, Justin Dake of Napa, CA, and Heather Dake of West Sacramento, CA. A Celebration of Life for Jacquelyn was held privately by her family.
Her family and friends will remember Jacquelyn as a private person, a good listener, ever supportive and quick to laugh, but it's her creativity and her art that were her gift to the world.