Doris Jackson

Doris Jackson, 89, of East Hartford, CT passed away peacefully on August 3, 2021. She was born April 12, 1932 in Webster County, Georgia as the second of the nine children of the late Frank Jackson and Leola Butler Jackson. In 1942 the Jackson Family relocated from Georgia to Hartford, CT and the following year moved to East Hartford, CT where Doris attended elementary, middle, and high school. Doris proved to be an excellent student and graduated as a member of the East Hartford High School Class of 1952, where as a senior she received the honor of being elected to membership in the Future Business Leaders of America. While still a high school student Doris was hired into a part-time position at the Travelers Insurance Company in Hartford. At Travelers, her supervisors were so impressed with the quality of her work that she was offered a full time position immediately upon graduation. Doris accepted the position and with a number of promotions remained a respected and very much appreciated employee of Travelers until her retirement from the company forty two years later.

Doris was a woman of substance and unwavering faith. Throughout her life she enjoyed attending church with different family members and friends and also liked to watch a number of different religious programs on television. Her high school classmates came up with a quote for Doris that they put with her picture in their yearbook, “Sober but not serious, Quiet but not idle,” that was a good reflection of part of her personality. However, Doris also happened to be gifted with a very likeable fun side. For her entire life she enjoyed following her favorite sports teams, from the Brooklyn Dodgers back in the 1950’s up to the present day New York Football Giants and the UCONN Women’s and Connecticut Sun basketball teams. Doris grew vegetables in her backyard garden and loved to share her bounty with family and friends. She had a poodle dog, Coco, to whom she provided loving attention. For many years going back Doris was a regular watcher of the Jeopardy program on television and liked to tune in every day to the Channel 3 news from Hartford. In recent years she would try to make sure not to miss any of her favorite news commentators on the cable channel, MSNBC.

Perhaps though, as the highest among her many impressive attributes, Doris was known for the unwavering commitment she made all her life to both her immediate and extended families. She purchased a home in East Hartford in order to have a place where she could provide loving comfort and care to her mother until her passing in 1998 at the age of 88. As the oldest surviving Jackson sibling, Doris was the person to whom her younger brothers and sisters turned for guidance, advice, and counsel. She always was selfless and ready give of herself without regard to what was going on in her own life. Doris was a regular and always warmly welcomed attendee at the Family Reunions held by both her Jackson and Butler relatives and was a particular favorite of her many cousins. She also was highly regarded by her neighbors and by the many friends that she had made and kept in touch with from her childhood years through adulthood. Her quiet and dignified demeanor was widely admired by all who knew her. Starting in 1961, she became beloved Auntie Doris to seventeen nieces and nephews and in succeeding generations grew to be loved to an even greater extent by all of the grandnieces and grandnephews, and great grandnieces and great grandnephews who followed. From infancy through adulthood a central part of all of their lives was visiting and spending time with her at her home knowing that Auntie Doris would be interested in and keep up with their activities as they grew and would delight in acknowledging them on their birthdays and at Christmas.

In addition to her parents, Doris was predeceased by her brothers Frank Jackson Jr, Willie Clarence Jackson, James Edward Jackson, and Henry Claude Jackson as well as by two nieces, two brothers-in-law and two sisters-in-law. She is survived by her brothers Chester Jackson of Rocky Hill, CT, Melvin Allen Jackson of Windsor, CT, and her sisters Loraine Stallings of East Hartford, CT and Mary Ann Prince Parham of Glastonbury, CT and her husband Bennie, and one sister-in-law, Vernita McMeans Jackson, and also is survived by many members of her Jackson and Butler extended families and a notable number of good friends.

If asked to sum everything up, Doris most likely would say that she was fortunate to have been blessed with what turned out to be a long and very good life. What certainly is true beyond a shadow of a doubt is that she will be greatly missed and always remembered fondly by all who knew and loved her.

Please join Doris Jackson’s family in celebrating her life with a period of visitation at Newkirk & Whitney Funeral Home, 318 Burnside Ave, East Hartford on Wednesday, August 11, 2021 from 9:00-11:00am. A funeral home prayer service will follow at 11:00am. Committal services will be held at Silver Lane Cemetery, East Hartford, CT. For condolences and an online memorial, please visit www.NewkirkAndWhitney.com.