Jean Caroline Heard Carmichael

September 16, 1940 - November 13, 2022

Jean was born and raised in New England. Her ancestors came over from England on the Good Ship Ann in 1623. Men in her family fought in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. She was proud that her father was a graduate of both Amherst and Harvard. Her family summered in Center Sandwich, New Hampshire and in Annisquam, Massachusetts, where she was on the Yacht Club’s sailing team.

She graduated from Winchester High School at 16 and went on to Bradford Women’s College. With a degree in Education, she taught a year in Boston and then she and her sister Mary, also a schoolteacher, decided to try the other Coast and came to San Francisco to teach for a year. At a Christmas party in early December, she met Arthur C. Carmichael, Jr., her husband of 58 years. When she returned from spending the Christmas Holiday with her family in Boston, she announced to Art, that he was the one for her and they should get married on August 8, 1964. So, they did in Marblehead, MA.

The couple bought their first home in Los Altos at the end of 1967 where they raised their two biological children Arthur III, called Mike, and Jennifer Marston Buckley along with extended family members Rory McGowan and Katie Jones Gradwohl. She was very proud that all four have a close loving relationship to this day and she was a very loved Nonnie by her eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren. After giving birth to her first child, she stopped teaching and became a mother and volunteer. She was a teacher’s aid at St. Simon Elementary School as well as the vice president of the women’s guild. She went on to be the president of the St. Francis High School women’s club and a member of the first board of directors of the Los Altos Community Foundation. She also was involved in Junior League in San Jose. Jean lived in their first home for 42 years before moving into the home she designed in her beloved New England style in 2009. Here she fed the birds shelled sunflower seeds in her cherished flower garden. The birds flocked to her in large numbers and the dust from between their feathers got into her lungs causing pulmonary fibrosis, called Bird Fanciers Disease. (The Bird Lady of Los Altos). She was on oxygen for two years before her death. She was loved by so many! Her Memorial Service will be on Saturday, December 3rd at 11 am at the Los Altos Golf and Country Club, where she joined with her husband 54 years ago. In lieu of flowers, donations in her honor may be made to St. Francis High School, the Los Altos Community Foundation, the El Camino Health Foundation or the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.