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Note: (St. Louis, MO) -- Jeanne Brezany (nee Hackworth) died of natural causes at 3:30 a.m. this morning, Friday, Jan. 28. She was 88 years of age, nine months, 17 days. Daughter of late state representative, Judge O.W. Hackworth, a democrat representing Wayne County, and Osa Oaks Clark also of Piedmont, Jeanne was born there as Ruby Eugenia Lee Hackworth on Apr. 19, 1911.
Jeanne�s great-grandfather Clark had been a pioneer, building a log cabin at the base of what became known as Clark Mountain, highest point in that region of the Ozarks. Following her mother, Osa's, death from tuberculosis in 1921, Ruby, as her family knew her, was raised by maternal grandmother, Estellah Clark in Benedict, Kansas; by sisters of her father: Sally (Hackworth) Carter in Piedmont; and Alpha Belle (Hackworth) Scanlon in St. Louis.
She loved to read literature, even as a child, when she sometimes read the same books over and over. Dickens' "David Copperfield" was an oft re-read favorite, three times by the age of ten, sitting in her Aunt Al's dormer window. Fortunately, there was a public library down the block, which she frequented when for a while she lived as a child in St. Louis. In late years of her life, she tried to pass on her passion; participating in educational reading fostering programs for local school children in Normandy, Missouri, she lived with her family in nearby Bellerive Acres.
Ruby learned to play the violin by age five, appearing in a Piedmont Founders Day "Tom Thumb Wedding" playing "The Twelve Days of Christmas." She also played the piano a bit. Though suffering from arthritis much later in life, she continued to play piano as best she could. "Star of the East" was a favorite piece, one which she requested be played at her funeral.
Prior to her marriage of 59 years to the late Eugene Brezany, DDS, a North St. Louis Dentist, she had resided in Chicago and was employed there as an editor with Christian Board Publications.
To her descendants she was known as Mama Jeanne and as a wonderful cook. Thanksgiving will never be the same without her. Also, she excelled in millinery arts, sewing robes and shirts and jackets for everyone in her life. She was a pretty good bowler and played in league tournaments for many years, a ping-pong player to be contended with, a gin-rummy player and a loving mother, grandmother, great grandmother, daughter, aunt, sister, and cousin to many with whom she was invariably supportive.
Mama Jeanne had some considerable writing talent: An article she wrote, "From The Bottom Looking Up," chronicles a trip she took to Clearwater Lake in Southeast Missouri. Going onto the lake in a small boat, peering into the water, she visualizes her grandfather's John's farm, there beneath the flood. In fact, due to an exercise in Eminent Domain (allowing the government to acquire property which owners would not otherwise choose to sell), that farm is located beneath that lake, though under normal circumstances, of course, no one could see anything at all in the murky water. The fortunate reader however, in this story, like the writer, is able to see the farm and enter somewhat into its life, which Jeanne lays out as the speaker of the piece. We are her guests.
Hard to keep 'em down on the farm, once they've put the lake on top. Survived by loving daughter Martha Rose �Breezy� Brezany of St. Louis; sons Eugene Edmund Brezany, Jr. of Los Angeles, CA and Robert Clark Brezany of Wildwood, MO; grandchildren and great grandchildren. Husband and daughter preceded her to the gates of heaven: Eugene Edmund Brezany, DDS and Mary Lee Wagner (nee Brewington).
Burial in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis on Monday, Jan. 31. # # #
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