Jeane Pope Massey, of Conroe, Texas, passed peacefully on June 15, 2021 after an unexpected but brief medical event. Jeane was born August 24, 1928 to William Barna Pope, Sr. and Nonie Mittie Law in Luverne, Crenshaw County, Alabama. Jeane is survived by her five adult children: daughter Kathryn Helen Sanders (Steve) of Conroe, TX, son John Lafayette Massey, Jr. (Therisa) of Conroe, TX, daughter Patricia Joye Morris (Gerald, Sr.) of Groesbeck, TX, daughter Merry Barnette Young of Mounds, OK, and daughter Laurie Jeane Brantley (Craig) of Spring, TX, five grandchildren, James “Jimmy” Bounds, Jr., Heather Betancourth (Robert), Alvin Gerald Morris, Jr., Christie Taylor Yates (Aaron) and Julia Lynnese Massey, great grandson, Brantley Scott Yates, sister Helen Pope Morgan of Mobile, AL, and brother William “Barna” Pope, Jr, of The Woodlands, TX, and numerous nieces and nephews. Jeane was preceded in death by her loving husband John Lafayette Massey, Sr., parents William B. Pope, Sr. and Nonie Mittie Law Pope, brothers George Harman Pope and Charles Jennings Pope, and sisters Julia Pope Goodwin and Susan Pope Mansfield. Sweet Dannie Jeane Pope was born in Luverne, Alabama, the sixth of seven children. Her father, a banker and pharmacist, moved his family from Luverne to Montgomery, AL to find work. The Pope family, like most Americans during the Great Depression, had many financial hardships. Everyone in the family helped to put food on the table. While the older children held part-time jobs in local department and dime stores while still in high school, mother Nonie baked brownies and Jeane and her youngest brother Charles “Jennings” sold the baked goods to local workers. In high school, Jeane, an aspiring journalist, worked after school at the Montgomery Advertiser as a junior apprentice and with . Too young to date, she accompanied her older sisters to UFO dances during World War II, and loved to Jitter Bug with the soldiers. After the war while attending Huntingdon College in Montgomery, she continued working part-time at the Advertiser as a cub reporter for the AP where she met her future husband, John Lafayette Massey. After their first date on October 31, 1946, they were married April 25, 1947. The couple traveled throughout the southern and eastern states while “Johnny” apprenticed to become a journeyman newspaper stereotyper (now obsolete). After four of their five children were born in different states during their apprentice years, the family eventually settled in Houston, TX in 1956 because “Houston had three major newspapers”. Jeane was a talented homemaker. She sewed her girls’ school clothes, canned strawberry jam in the summers, and was leader of Girl Scout Troop 35. When the children were older, she became an American Red Cross “Gray Lady” volunteer at the Houston VA Hospital. That inspired her to return to college where she first became a Licensed Vocational Nurse, then a Registered Pharmacist in 1976 after graduating from the University of Houston, College of Pharmacy. Jeane worked as a hospital pharmacist where she loved ‘compounding’, and eventually retired from Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital. Later she joined one of the Texas Department of Health’s survey teams that inspected nursing homes in Harris, Ft. Bend and Montgomery counties. Like her sisters, Jeane was a proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Coushatti Trace Chapter. After a second retirement, Jeane and her beloved husband John traveled the world visiting Great Britain, Europe, and South America. Because of John’s love of the ocean from his years in the U.S. Navy, many of their travels were by freighter cruise. Jeane always had a love of music. She was exposed at a very early age to classical music when she listened to her father and his siblings play during Sunday gatherings. She passed her love of music on to her children, and even learned to play the cello later in life. Jeane and John moved from Houston, lived on Lake Conroe for a while, and eventually settled in Conroe, Texas. Her soulmate passed away in 2012 after celebrating 65 years of marriage. Jeane was laid to rest next to her husband during a private family burial. Jeane is now reunited with her loving husband John, her cherished father and mother, and her precious siblings. Her family will be forever grateful for the loving attention given by her caregivers, especially Heather and Misha, at Pine Hollow Ranch. In lieu of flowers, it is the family’s wish that donations be made to New Danville, 10951 Shepard Hill Rd, Willis, TX 77318.
In Memoriam