Jean Gratton

DALLAS, Texas ? Jean Marie McKinney Gratton, of Dallas, Texas, died Sunday, March 26, 2017, in Dallas.

The family will receive friends from 7 to 9 p.m., Friday, April 7, at Sparkman/Hillcrest Funeral Home in Dallas, Texas. The funeral service will be held at 11 a.m., Saturday, April 8, at the funeral home. Burial will follow in the family plot in Hillcrest Memorial Park. Contributions may be made in Jean?s name to the Liz Gratton Endowment, Camp Grady Spruce YMCA, 9409 Garland Road, Suite 200, Dallas, TX 75218, Attn: Lori Villarreal.

Mrs. Gratton was born in 1930 in Lake Geneva Township, Wisconsin, the daughter and first child of Dwight McKinney and Edna (Landau) McKinney. She married Pat Gratton in 1955.

She grew up in towns and farms in south central Wisconsin before moving to Iowa in her teens. She attended Delavan High School in Wisconsin and Washington High School in Iowa. After high school, she continued at the local junior college and then Iowa Wesleyan College. Tired of cold northern winters, she moved to New Mexico and attended and graduated from UNM with a B.A. in elementary education. She worked her way through high school and college, starting as a telephone switchboard operator in high school. While in college she moved into her chosen field, working as an elementary schoolteacher in Iowa and then in New Mexico. In New Mexico she met her future husband in Geology 1 class, where a rivalry for the highest grade advanced to romance. As she and her husband raised their family of four children ? Sara, Vivian, Patrick Sean, and Lizabeth ? work took them from Albuquerque to Denver, Roswell, Houston, Santa Fe, Del Rio, Tyler, and finally Dallas. When not busy raising the children and running the household, she helped her husband run his office after he became an oil operator and independent geologist. She served in the Cadence Dance Club, the Greenway Park Women?s Club (GPWC) and the Zeta Tau Alpha Alumni organizations, including terms as president of the GPWC and the Cadence Club.

Surviving are her husband, three children; two grandchildren; one brother; one aunt; and numerous cousins, nieces, and nephews.