Jeanne Kilgore Perez, 94, of Jacksonville, died April 30, 2019, at her home under hospice care with her daughter and son at her bedside. A funeral mass will be at 1 p.m. on Friday, May 3, 2019, at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Jacksonville. She is preceded in death by her husband, LTC Adolph Perez; her mother, Marie Schipper Kilgore; father, SSgt Harry N. Kilgore; and a brother, SSgt Harry N. Kilgore Jr. She is survived by her son, Matt; daughter, Elaine Swinehart and family; and cousins in Indiana, North Carolina and Alabama. Jeanne lived the fullest of life from her childhood on the Kilgore property that became the intersection of the Eastern Bypass and Hwy. 21. She panned for gold in Cleburne County near a retired Anniston streetcar that her father and Miller Sproul Sr. set up as a hunting lodge. By the time she married in her early 30s, she had traveled to Cuba, Mexico, and most states east of the Mississippi. She fished every area river and from the Florida coast to lakes in Kentucky and Michigan. During World War II, Jeanne was a volunteer for the USO, drove heavy trucks at Anniston Army Depot, and for one season designed the pleated cheerleader uniform for her Jacksonville High School Golden Eagles squad. She managed to snag several members of Bennie Goodman’s orchestra stationed for training at Fort McClellan to play for the Jacksonville High Prom. She weathered The Great Depression and would lose her father and brother to war injury. After high school, Jeanne started nurses training at Holy Name of Jesus Hospital in Gadsden. She was forced to leave in her second year to care for her mother after her brother, a B-24 Liberator tail gunner, lost his life on his final bombing mission. She took a job as the payroll bookkeeper at Anniston Memorial Hospital, where she worked for 10 years. To ward off speculators trying to take her land, she developed and rented the Pelham Road commercial property that became a Phillips 66, Chateau Beauty Salon and Mikado Japanese Steakhouse. In August 1959, she wed a young Army captain, Adolph “Al” Perez, at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church, where her mother managed the care of altar linens. She was one of our eldest area residents baptized at Sacred Heart. As an Army officer’s wife, Jeanne hosted many officer functions and dinner parties at Fort Clayton, Panama Canal Zone, and here at Fort McClellan. She often volunteered with the school lunch program at St. Mary’s Catholic School (Sacred Heart) and became lifelong friends with school staff and the Benedictine nuns who once operated the K-8 institution. While her husband worked in doctrine and command at the U.S. Army Chemical School at Fort McClellan, Jeanne managed commercial property and rentals. She was the most devoted of mothers and cared for her own mother at home until her passing at age 96. And when her husband transitioned into Perez Realty, Jeanne managed the office and saw that her children earned their degrees at Auburn University. In her later years, Jeanne and Al would travel again, this time to Galicia, Spain, to stay with Al’s extended family for several months. When myasthenia gravis, cancer, and several other chronic diseases slowed down her husband, she became a caretaker until her own condition waned. An aggressive renal carcinoma appeared in 2018, but she was able to spend one more winter at her vacation home near Clearwater, Fla. Her surviving family there belongs to her daughter. They are a son, Richard Swinehart and two grandchildren, Timothy and Anna Swinehart. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Benedictine Sisters of Cullman, Alabama, 916 Convent Road NE, Cullman, AL 35055. And most important, please pray to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who has called Jeanne Kilgore Perez to her eternal rest with the faithful departed. To send flowers or a memorial gift to the family of Jeanne Kilgore Perez please visit our Sympathy Store.
Our most sincere sympathies to the family and friends of Jeanne Kilgore Perez April 14 1925 April 30 2019.
K.L. Brown Funeral Home and Cremation Center
Death notice for the town of: -, state: Alabama