Jean celebrates an extraordinary century
Centenarian Jean Eathorne was born just two months after the end of the Firstworldwar.
She celebrated her 100th birthday on Tuesday, January 15, surrounded by friends and family in a retirement home just ten miles from where she grew up in Larkhall.
Ian Mcallan, the provost of South Lanarkshire, visited Jean on her birthday and was accompanied by the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Lanarkshire, Colonel David Cranstoun.
Provost Mcallan said:“jean Eathorne has lived a quite extraordinary life and one in which both her own Christian faith and service to others have been key.
“It was an honour and a privilege to present her with gifts from the people of South Lanarkshire as a mark of respect on her 100th birthday, and it was a pleasure to see her surrounded by family and friends – the best reward for a life well lived.”
Born in Livingston in 1919, Jean’s parents Margaret and Hugh Orr made Lanarkshire their home as they raised their four children.
In 1941, at the age of 22, she volunteered for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and saw wartime service as a cook, receiving a promotion to the rank of Sergeant Cook-caterer in 1944.
A committed Christian throughout her life, Jean left the WAAF in 1947 and became a cook at the London Bible College. That same year, she went to work on a farm in France to improve her French, before travelling to Morocco in 1948 to work as a missionary.
Jean continued working in the African country for the next 24 years, before travelling to America in 1972 and then returning to Scotland in 1974.
The following year she married William Eathorne and became stepmother to his sons Stuart and Donald. William had his own retail business, and the couple continued to visit Morocco every two years.