Jean Ellen Horton (née McDowell) passed away on July 1, 2025, in Eugene, Oregon. She was 83.

Jean was born on May 9, 1942, in Indiana, to Ron and Alice McDowell. Her younger sister, Beth, arrived a year later, and the two shared a childhood in Warsaw, Indiana. Jean attended Drake University in Iowa, where she met her future husband, J. Pat Horton. The couple married in 1962 and, after graduating, moved to Oregon to begin their life together.

Jean initially worked as a math teacher before choosing to stay home to raise her two children, John and Kathleen (“Katy”), born in the early 1970s. In 1977, she became a born-again Christiana turning point that deeply shaped her life. She poured her heart into ministry, especially at Emerald Bible Fellowship in Eugene, mentoring and counseling teenage girls in the church youth group.

Following her divorce in 1986 and after her children had grown, Jean cared for her own mother through the end of her long life. Jean then took on various roles with characteristic curiosity and independence: real estate agent, dormitory resident director, and “sorority mother” at universities around the country. Eventually, she returned to Eugene, the place she most called home.

Jean was smart, conversational, feisty, intellectually curious, and never shy about her political views. Even as Alzheimer’s gradually took her memory and awareness, her sense of humor,especially her love of a good pun, remained remarkably intact.

Jean’s life was a reminder of the importance of forgiving others and forgetting prior slights, not sweating the small stuff, accepting and loving people who disagreed with you politically and spiritually, and taking responsibility for one’s own happiness and not blaming others for life’s inevitable misfortunes.

Jean is survived by her son John, her daughter Katy, and four grandchildren.