Dear Friends and Family,
On the morning of Thursday, July 17, 2020 at 07:45 AM our Mother Jeannine Frances Booth Whitworth, gently breathed her last and was welcomed into the arms of her risen Friend and Lord Jesus Christ.
Born to Walter and Evelyn Booth on February 18, 1929 in Roanoke, Virginia, Jeannine, and her elder sister Mildred and younger sister Norma Lee, built rich memories despite the deprivations of the Great Depression and World War II.
For breakfast their Dad, Walter would sometimes hunt squirrels and deep fry them with doughnuts for breakfast. Or sometimes they enjoyed pig brains and scrambled eggs. Jeannine remembered her mother Evelyn coming home from work on the bus with bring a small can of spam to split between them. Or in better times bringing a live chicken in from the yard to be dispatched and plucked and singed for dinner.
Christmas might bring a new dress and a stocking with an orange for each of the sisters.
Jeannine married in 1951 to US Navy Electrician Russell Whitworth who was deployed to serve on Minesweepers in the Korean War. Waiting for Russell, Jeannine moved with her sister Norma Lee to work in the US Navy’s Ordnance facility in China Lake, California, where they could sometimes watch the flashes from Nevada’s atomic tests.
Jeannine and Russell’s navy career took them from China Lake to Norfolk, Virginia; Oakland and Alameda, California; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Sasebo, Japan; and San Diego, California.
At these duty stations Jeannine became the mother of Allan, Daniel and Robert (Walter) Whitworth.
She and her boys were active in the Baptist church, Cub scouts, teaching English at the Shinwa Bank, and avidly hiking on Oahu, and in Sasebo Japan’s Yumihari, and Eboshi-dake. She helped her sons with school work, catching snakes, lizards, frogs, and hosting children in her home with flannel-graphs and songs for Child Evangelism fellowship.
In 1968 Jeannine and Russell retired to Serra Mesa in San Diego where her boys would each graduate from high school. She worked as a Medical Assistant for Linda Vista Community clinic, and then as an adoptions clerk for the the county of San Diego, from which she retired. Work was replaced by zealous membership in the Sierra club, and hiking whenever she could in the Cleveland National Forest. Later in life she would visit religious retreats back east, join bicycle tours in New Hampshire, and visit her hometown Roanoke, Virginia.
Whether buzzing about Serra Mesa on her bicycle or electric scooter; saving king snakes from small mobs of ladies in Balboa Park, or bringing home tarantulas from hiking in the nearby canyons, Jeannine and her boys, cats and dogs were able to wring joy out of a frugal life alone with her many friends
Jeannine is survived by sister Norma Lee Booth; sons Allan, Daniel, and Robert Whitworth; grandchildren Nathanael, Timothy, Emma Lee Rose, and Benjamin Whitworth; and great-granddaughter Aria Rose Whitworth
A Celebration of Jeannine’s life will be held at Greenwood Memorial Park,
off Highway 94, at 4300 Imperial Avenue, San Diego, 92113
10:00 AM, Friday July 17, 2020
Call Allan Whitworth at 858.531.4302 for directions, help, more information.
The Greenwood staff has graciously offered to to create signs and colored markers to direct us to the proper place.
Cold water, MASKS and “social distancing” help will be offered at the outdoor, sunny, Greenwood cemetery, grave side memorial.
- The exact location is
- “Garden of the Whispering Pines”, Lot 355, Space #1
- GOOGLE MAPS 32.7059012,-117.1030815
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