Jeannette Clara Watson, 91, was born on Sept. 12th, 1928 to Frank and Nancy Jane (Lewis) Kamarit in St. Louis Missouri. She passed on Wednesday. October 30th at 9:45 a.m. at Swansea Health Center. She was one of 5 girls. Evelyn (Kamarit) Range, Catherine (Kamarit) Johnson, Janie (Kamarit) Zmolek, and Frances (Kamarit) Furfaro, and a half brother, Burrell Lewis. She lived in Jerseyville IL with her sisters while her father (Frank) went to Cuba. Upon returning, Frank and Nancy Jane moved their family to East St. Louis, IL, where most of Jeannette's childhood was spent . Eventually, settling in Cahokia, Il.. Jeannette and her sister Catherine met two Merchant Marines, James Watson and Leonard Johnson, and ran away to Kansas to marry. She had three children, James A. Watson Jr., Jennifer (Watson) Kirschbaum (Ben) and Judith (Watson) Turley (Darwin). She has four grandchildren, Julie (Kirschbaum) Geisbush, (Rob), Gregory Taylor, Benjamin Taylor and Patrick Taylor (Britnay). She has 11 great-grandchildren, Isabelle and Wesley Cook, Madeline, Avery and Lanny Taylor, Steven Alan, Cheyenne and Hayden Taylor, and Aiden, Braden and Eric Taylor, and numerous nephews and nieces.

She enjoyed playing the Hawaiian guitar and was at a professional level. She also was a mother and homemaker, and worked several small jobs. Once divorced and after her children were grown, she was a real estate agent and then became a craft coordinator for the Job Corp, which she thoroughly enjoyed, working and instructing young people for further careers.

She was preceded in death by her mother and father, Frank and Nancy Jane Kamarit, three of her sisters, Evelyn Range, Catherine Johnson and Frances Furfaro, her half brother Burrell Lewis, as well as her son James Watson, Jr., and grandson Steven Alan Taylor.

Visitation and services will be November 7, 2019 at Braun Colonial Funeral Home, 265 Quarry Road, Columbia, IL., officiated by Dan Bachelor of the First Pentecostal Church in Dupo, IL. Visitation from 10a.m. until noon, with service immediately following. Jeannette will then be interned at Antonia Cemetery, in Antonia, Missouri near her son, James Jr at 1:45 p.m.