JEAN WESLEY passed away at Seton Medical Center in Austin on August 8, 2012, following a heart attack at home a day earlier. She was born in Austin on June 21, 1931, the daughter of Marvin William and Lorena Pharr Wesley. She is survived by her husband of 57 years, Robert K. German, her daughter, Elizabeth Lynn (Beth) German and her partner Robert ("Kane") Petrowski, of New Mexico, her brother George (G.M.) Wesley of Lockhart and his children Travis Wesley and Christa Wesley. Jean graduated from Austin High School in 1949 and the University of Texas, where she received a BA in government and psychology (1952) and an MA in comparative government (1954). While at UT Jean was active in student government, Orange Jackets, Mortar Board, and Delta Delta Delta sorority. As a child growing up in Austin, Jean spent many weekends with her parents and extended family at the family cabin on Lake Travis, beginning as soon as the family dry cleaning shop, George Wesley Cleaners, closed for the weekend. She was very active in girl scouts, attending camp as a scout and later as a camp counselor. She loved to tell the stories of their camping adventures. Jean also enjoyed tennis, swimming and later, skiing. Jean's childhood, Girl Scout, UT, and sorority friends were lifelong sources of fun, humor and support for her and for her husband and daughter. She held a series of professional positions before her marriage and intermittently throughout her married life, often changing career responsibilities in order to accommodate moves to other cities and other countries necessitated by her husband's career demands as an officer in the US Air Force and a career diplomat in the US Foreign Service. At the time of their marriage, Jean was working as a district representative for the American Cancer Society, covering eleven counties in south Texas. While living in Omaha, NE, she worked first at the University of Omaha and then as a Girl Scout executive in Council Bluffs, Iowa, utilizing experience gained from participating in a national Girl Scout conference in Mexico City while in high school and from serving as a counselor at summer camps. In Washington, DC, in the 1950s Jean worked as an executive in the national Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs. In the 1960s she worked for the Social Science Research Group where her projects included working on the Model Cities Project, interviewing numerous community leaders, including controversial politician Marion Barry at a time of tumultuous riots. In Japan, Germany, Moscow, Oslo, Berlin and Bonn, Jean was a gracious, brilliant and professional Foreign Service wife, attending and hosting numerous diplomatic functions to help further the overseas interests of the United States. She tutored Japanese students in conversational English and welcomed many American students overseas into her home, especially over the holidays. Jean brought a touch of Texas to the USSR, by hosting a real Texas Bar B Que in the Russian countryside before she and Bob left Moscow at the end of their second two-year assignment there, in 1980. Back in Washington, DC, she became Director of the Overseas Briefing Center at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, where she provided cross cultural training, briefed newly-appointed ambassadors, and established numerous programs to assist families of foreign service officers stationed overseas and those returning to the US, as in the case of the families of the Iran hostages. Jean and Bob retired to her hometown of Austin, Texas in 1990 where she was blessed with the friendships she had made in her youth, with wonderful new friends and neighbors and was able to spend time with her brother, his children and numerous cousins. Jean German was a lifelong supporter of civil rights and social justice. She had a keen interest in local, national and international politics and thoroughly enjoyed reading and discussing current events. She had a sharp wit, a great sense of humor and enjoyed nothing more than a good conversation with friends. In lieu of flowers, those wishing to do so may make gifts in memory of Jean German to Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. - Fund Development, P.O. Box 5046, New York, NY 10087. A Memorial Service will be conducted by The Rev. Christine Faulstich of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church on Monday the 13th of August at eleven o'clock in the morning in the Davis Chapel at Cook Walden Funeral Home 6100 North Lamar Blvd. Condolences may be made at www.cookwaldenfuneralhome.com
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