SEATTLE, Wash. — Ruby Jean Gesin (Gasper, nee: Overton),

age 101, passed away January 4, 2023 in Seattle, Wash.

Jean was born July 27, 1921 to Willard and Bertha Ann Overton in Montrose, Ark., the youngest of five children.

She grew up in West Helena, Ark., where the family moved after surviving the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 while living in Lake Village, Ark.

The family moved to Little Rock when she was 17, and she graduated from Little Rock Central High School in 1940.

Jean retired in 1983 from Reynolds Electric and Engineering Co. of Las Vegas, Nev. She and Jim moved back to Arkansas in 1984. She was a retired member of the American Business Women’s Association.

Jean was a fun-loving person and was very musical, making up little songs and enjoying listening to old tunes she remembered on YouTube. She loved to dance. She enjoyed watching sports, especially golf and football, with the family, with a more recent enthusiasm for ice hockey. She could sit quietly for hours working jigsaw and crossword puzzles and loved it when her nephew-in-law, Bruce, kept her company, also doing puzzles.

She was preceded in death by her parents, brothers and sisters. Her first husband, David Gasper, was killed in action during WWII in Belgium in January 1945, and her second husband of 52 years, James Gesin, passed away in November 2000. Her only child, Janet Lynn Goodman, passed away in June 2011, and one grandson, James Anthony Reid, passed away in May 2019.

She is survived by one grandson, Michael Paul Reid (Patricia) and their children and grandchildren; and three nieces: Ann (Carla Locatelli), Brenda (Bruce Crowley) and Laura (Shandee Jones) Matter.

She moved to Seattle in 2015 and lived with her niece and nephew in law, Brenda and Bruce, for several years, then moved to Daystar Retirement Home in West Seattle in 2021. We are very grateful for the good care she received there and the friendships that she formed with her caregivers and fellow residents.

Jean will be laid to rest next to her husband, Jim, at Griffin Leggett Rest Hills in N. Little Rock. At her request, there will be no local services in Seattle; she asked “just say a prayer for me.”

Please visit her site at: dignitymemorial.com.