Lasting Memories

Jean Allan Willis
April 8, 1932-Sept. 18, 2022
Atherton, California

On September 18, 2022, Jean Allan Willis, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, former business executive and accomplished craftswoman, passed away in her home in Atherton at the age of 90.

Jean Lee Allan was born in Omaha Nebraska in 1932, attended Dundee elementary school, Rosemary Hall School for Girls, Wellesley College, and graduated from Stanford University in 1953. She was quite tall and striking, and made a strong impression on many who met her. While attending Wellesley, she passed her future husband, David Willis, in a stairwell. He spent the next several days calling everyone he knew at the college to find out who she was. They were married in 1954 at Grace Cathedral in Omaha.

After living in Houston for several years while David worked for Shell Oil, they moved to Atherton, CA, where they raised their three boys, Beau, Nelt, and Parker. In the early years of 1960’s Silicon Valley their house was a crossroads of entrepreneurs, visiting students, mathematicians and engineers. She was an early adopter of Julia Child’s culinary revolution, putting the entire family to work in the kitchen and creating a passion for cooking that extends across generations. The family traveled extensively, and she loved the summers spent in the Santa Cruz mountains and backpacking trips in the High Sierras.

Jean was a capable and charismatic leader and often ended up in charge of volunteer projects, whether as treasurer and vice president of the Junior League of Palo Alto, supporting the International Student Center at Stanford, or as President of the Menlo School Mothers Club.

Jean’s passion for meticulous workmanship was expressed through her many projects. Her father, James Allan, was a well known commercial architect in the midwest and taught her drafting and basic architecture in his offices in Omaha. She designed and supervised the construction of two houses, including her home in Atherton. For almost forty years she was a regular student at the Palo Alto High School adult vocational upholstery program, and upholstered and re-upholstered dozens of sofas, armchairs and pillows in the family homes, all of them precisely and beautifully executed. Many of her dozens of sewing projects are now beloved heirlooms that her grandchildren wear with style and pride, as the 1970s are once again cool.

In her mid fifties, Jean entered the workforce as an executive assistant at Trust Consultants, Inc, a pension management firm based in San Mateo. Always a quick study, after a few years she had advanced to the position of Chief Operating Officer, leading the operational side of the business. When the company was later acquired by Marsh and Mclennan Companies, Jean was appointed Senior Vice President in the firm, twelve years after she began her business career as a secretary.

She read everything. Throughout her life, her conversation sparkled with a dry, knowing wit and an extensive and artfully deployed vocabulary.

We miss her very much.

Jean is survived by her sister, three sons and their wives, eight grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren.