Jean Elizabeth Liddle Yokley was born on July 12, 1946, in Trenton, Michigan. She moved with her family to San Diego, California when she was 7 years old. Jean married Richard Yokley, a native of San Diego, in 1964 while he was serving in the Air Force and living in Sumter, South Carolina (Shaw AFB). The couple had been dating since 1960. After living in South Carolina, they lived in Hampton, Virginia (Langley AFB) and their son was born on base in 1966. After being discharged, they moved back to San Diego.
Jean went to nursing school and worked at Grossmont Hospital on the Oncology Ward and later became a nursing instructor. Their daughter was born at Grossmont. Jean raised, bred and showed Cavalier King Charles Spaniels while in San Diego and Tucson, Arizona and attended Crufts in England several times.
Jean became an avid quilter with almost all of her work donated to charity: Ronald McDonald House, Project Linus, Fischer House, retirement facilities, convalescent homes, military and others.
After her husband retired from the fire service they moved to Tucson, Arizona and resided there for 15 years. She is a past regent in the Tucson Chapter of DAR (2018-19) and a member of the Mayflower Society.
In 2018 she contracted non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy and beat the cancer. A year later they moved to Prague where Jean continued her community work in quilting and became a member of the Heartland Quilters Group in Prague. She attended St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church in Prague and Saint Louis Catholic Church in Stroud.
She contracted COVID twice, even though having the two inoculations and a booster, and in early 2023 the cancer came back with a vengeance, and she had been under home Hospice care since mid-July.
Besides quilting and showing dogs, genealogy, gardening, canning and her roses, she and her husband enjoyed traveling, visiting most of the states and the likes of Finland, Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, Honduras, Cancun, Cozumel, Chicken Itza Yucatan, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Vienna, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Monaco, USSR in 1986 (now known as Russia).
A highlight for her was visiting Normandy for the 70th D-Day Anniversary event in 2015 and retracing in her father's footsteps and visiting some of the actual places where her father was during the War, chronicled by some of his photographs.
She succumbed peacefully at home to cancer on August 3, 2023. She is survived by her husband of 59 years, Richard Yokley; her older brother, Richard Liddle and his wife Mary of Prague; her son, Richard C. Yokley II and his wife Veronica of San Diego; two blessed grandaughters Elizabeth and Erin of that union;; her daughter Karin Yokley of Tucson, Arizona; nephews, Jim Liddle and his wife Donna of Prague; and beloved cousin Susi Olson and her husband Chris of Little Rock, Arkansas, along with other relatives in Michigan.
There will be no services at her request. She will be interred at the City of Prague Cemetery.
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