Lorraine (Lori) Mary Jonas

Lorraine or Lori as her Texas friends knew her, was 73 years old when she passed. She was a resident of Baytown, Texas for the last 13 years. She was born in Carbondale, PA on April 28, 1943. Her parents were Walter Prezelski and Mary Paukstis Prezelski. Lorraine graduated high school from Forest City High School of the Class of 1961.

Lorraine was married to Jeb Edward Jonas for the last 38 years. Jeb and Lori were married on January 10, 1979 in Houston, Texas. Lorraine worked for most of her adult life as an executive secretary, first in Endicott, New York for IBM and later at DE Laval and then Diamond Shamrock in Houston, Texas. Lori wrangled engineers for a living. She kept a large department under control for most of the time. She also managed an Oil and Gas Distribution department in her later career.

Lorraine was active in the community theater group in Williamsport, PA for 10 years. She also was a driver for Meals on Wheels and published the newsletter for the Welcome Newcomers Club in Williamsport, PA for about 8 years. She started square dancing in Ohio and continued when we moved back to Texas in 2004. Lorraine loved to travel and went on numerous cruises to Alaska, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean. Lori traveled to Europe twice visiting Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France, Austria, and Netherlands. Lori love to go camping. She started out camping in tents and sleeping bags but quickly grew out of that mode of camping. She moved up to a Class C motorhome and finally on to her pride and joy, a large diesel pusher bus, a 43’ Tiffin Allegro Bus today. For the last 10 years, she combined campouts with square dancing and worked as the treasure for the Houston Area Camping Squares. Every month, she could be found sitting at the entrance of the dance hall selling 50/50 tickets and taking admissions. Lori had a wild side hidden and she let it show every now and then when she bought her a Corvette for her 65th birthday. Lori picked out and special ordered a bright Crystal Red Corvette Coupe and had it delivered to Deer Park, Texas. Her first trip in it was to drive over to our son’s house, Robert and show off how she was spending his inheritance. Lori participated in two separate corvette clubs in the Houston area, the San Jacinto Corvette Club, and the Sam Houston Corvette Club. The wild flower trips to west Texas was some of her favorite drives. I can still her coaching my driving saying “Faster, Faster” and “Pass that sucker.”

Lorraine is survived by her husband, Jeb Edward Jonas and one son, Robert Joseph Riley. Robert is married to Stacey Riley and they have three wonderful and all grown up kids, Jaron Sayers, Mary Riley, and Jacob Riley. Jaron now has a daughter, Memphis Lucera Sayers making Lorraine a great grandmother.