Mrs. Jean H. Maury

A memorial service will be held at Well Spring Retirement Community on May 23, 2011 at 3 pm.

Mrs. Maury is survived by her husband of 63 years, Lucien Garnett Maury. She was born on Dec. 26, 1924 to Laura Neth Hurt and James Herbert Hurt in Dwight, Illinois, and grew up in Fairbury, Illinois. She won the Livingston County scholarship to the University of Illinois and graduated with a degree in journalism in 1945. She was the first woman to be editor-in-chief of the Daily Illini, the university’s student newspaper that was widely distributed and read within the Urbana-Champaign community. She held this position during the last year of World War II. She worked in for the University of Illinois in Chicago in public relations for several years upon graduation from college.

She married Dr. Maury on June 11, 1947. They lived in Wilmington, DE., where Dr. Maury was an senior executive with Hercules, Inc., a chemical company. For four years they lived in Belgium where he was President of Hercules Europe which was headquartered in Brussels.

As a volunteer Mrs. Maury served as president of the League of Women Voters of Cecil County, MD, and a member of the LWV State Board. She was appointed to a number of government boards and commissions. Battling rheumatoid arthritis more than half her life, she was active in the Arthritis Foundation as chairman of the board of the Delaware Chapter and was one of the first volunteers to be trained to lead the Arthritis Self-Help Course. When the Maurys moved to Well Spring Retirement Community in Greensboro in 1999, she founded the Triad Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group. Mrs. Maury was an active member of the N.C. P.E.O. Chapter A and a longtime member of the Kappa Delta sorority.

In addition to her husband she is survived by three daughters, Deborah Maury and her husband, Michael Kent Curtis, Marcy Maury and her husband, John Paul Roy, all of Greensboro, and Wendy Maury and her husband, Michael Bergman of Iowa City, IA., grandsons Matthew Curtis-Maury and his wife Jennifer of Cary, Evan Roy and his wife Kelly of Greensboro, Brian Roy and his wife Katie of Hampstead, Zachary Bergman of Evanston, IL, and granddaughter, Erin Bergman of Madison, WI. In addition, she had two great granddaughters. She is survived by two brothers, James Hurt and his wife Madeline of Cumming, GA., and Robert Hurt and his wife Carol Ann of Urbana, IL.

In lieu of flowers, donations to the Arthritis Foundation, P.O. Box 7669, Atlanta, GA 30357-0669 would be appreciated.