Jean Harris Slingerland died quietly in her sleep on Monday, January 25, 2016 of complications from thyroid cancer. She fought the disease hard, determined to participate fully in as many family events as she could manage. During her last two days, she anticipated her imminent passing with great courage and grace, saying good bye to friends and family with her familiar extraordinary eloquence.

Jean Lois Harris was born on September 26th, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan to William and Eugenie Harris. After attending Detroit High School, Jean majored in French at Wellesley College, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude.

In 1946, Jean married D. Ward Slingerland (1922 - 2010). Jean and Ward began a lifetime of travel immediately after the Second World War, bicycling together through France for their honeymoon, but settled in Wellesley, MA – the town Jean had fallen in love with as an undergraduate. In 1953, their daughter Jennifer was born, and their son John arrived in 1957. To those who knew and loved them, Jean and Ward's marriage was a great love story – enriched by shared passions for family, education, travel, skiing, and politics; honed by sharp wit; insulated by the deepest mutual respect.

In their 64 years together, Jean and Ward traveled extensively together, with their children, and with their grandchildren. Wherever they went, Jean was "in charge" of the languages. With a quick ear and an instinctive grasp of grammar, Jean added Italian and German to her facility in French. In later years, she undertook the humbling task of learning both ancient Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphs, discovering, to her amusement, that she could work her way through beginning Greek only to have to begin all over again a year or so later!

In addition to travel and skiing, grand parenting (as "Mimi") was among Jean's prominent pass-times and chief joys. She and Ward were staunch supporters of their grandchildren's endeavors, and spent significant time on bleachers and in stadiums and auditoriums, cheering.

Perhaps above all else, Jean was an academic and an intellect. She matriculated as a graduate student in English Literature at Harvard, where she served as a Teaching Fellow from 1965 to 1974 and as Assistant Director of Expository Writing from 1973 to 1974. She received her Master of Arts degree in 1974. Professionally, Jean taught French from 1946 until 1950, and from 1961 until 1965, at the Winsor School in Boston; served as Chair of the Massachusetts Advisory Committee to the federally funded Right-to Read Program from 1975 to 1978; and worked as a research assistant to her beloved college Professor Walter Houghton, Editor of the Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodical Literature, from 1980 to 1983. At Houghton's death in 1983, Jean assumed the editorship of the Index, completing Volume IV, and adding a fifth and final volume in 1989.

Jean is survived by her daughter Jennifer Slingerland Skeele and her husband Charles, her son John Harris Slingerland and his wife Marcia, grandchildren Katherine and Anna Skeele, Benjamin, Eric and Anna Slingerland, great grandchildren Henry and Eliza Ling-Skeele, and nephew David S. Wagner. She will be sorely missed by all who knew and loved her.

In lieu of flowers, Jean would be pleased to be remembered by donations made in her name to the Epiphany School,154 Centre St., Dorchester, MA 02124.