IRVINGTON—On February 27, 2024, Jean Redick Ward passed peacefully after a short illness, surrounded by her three children.
She was born in Omaha, Neb., in December of 1934 but spent the better part of her younger life in the farmland of Iowa, with the occasional trip to a ranch on Fremont Lake, Wyoming.
At age 15, Jean attended the Mount Vernon Seminary and Junior College in Washington, D.C., a city she would not leave for the next 35 years.
In September of 1956, she married Timothy D. McEnroe and started her family, becoming the mother of three children in three short years. Football parties, children’s parties and cocktail parties fueled the heady social sphere of the burgeoning capital. Her most favorite job was being the manager of the Junior League of Washington’s retail store in Georgetown for 15 years, which provided tales told around the dinner table.
In December of 1979, she married Richard A. Ward. Upon their retirement, they spent a few years sailing their Hinckley Bermuda-40 up and down the east coast and all around the Caribbean. However, in 1987, the lure of a fixed address and a patch of land to plant caused a house to be built on a spit of land by the lake next to greens at the Golden Eagle Golf course in Irvington, where she happily spent the next 35 years. Entertaining, gardening, quilting, volunteering at the local historic sites all kept her busy. She was proud of her many years singing soprano as a member of Grace Church in Kilmarnock. But her greatest joy was the raising of a series of her beloved white West Highland terriers, always in pairs.
Her survivors include daughter, Marion McEnroe Puglisi of Portland, Maine; son, George Patrick McEnroe of South Portland, Maine; daughter, Dana Elizabeth McEnroe of Portland; her sister, Marion Redick Peterson of Sacramento, Calif., and her three sons, Gregory, George and Jon Peterson.
In lieu of flowers, she requested that donations be made to the Animal Welfare League of the Northern Neck, in Kilmarnock.
