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- Mobile Register and Baldwin County, April 10, 2016
Jean Deloris Lewis Bassett
April 17, 1937 - April 4, 2016
Jean Deloris Lewis entered this life on April 17, 1937 to Walter Martin Lewis and Willie Mae Bennett in Mobile, Alabama. She graduated Central High School in 1955 and went on to Lincoln University in Lincoln, Missouri majoring in mathematics. While at Lincoln University, she met the man who would go on to become her first husband, Sterling Victor Johnson. After they married, they eventually landed and settled in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, her husband's hometown. Ten years after they married, and after years of praying for a child, a daughter came, Dreanna ("Drena"). She named her Dreanna because she had a dream that she was pregnant, a dream she would later discover to be true. In 1976, Jean and Sterling divorced, and she returned home to Mobile with her daughter. In Mobile, she reunited with her family church, Truevine Missionary Baptist Church, then under the leadership of the late Rev. B.D. Lambert. In 1979, Jean met the now-deceased Gene William Bassett (2005), and in 1980, they married. Shortly thereafter, Jean began her professional life in civil service with the Internal Revenue Service. She would later civilly serve in the United States, Army Corps of Engineers, from which she would retire in the early 1990s. Fast forward to 2009, and after a conversation with her daughter, she determined that she wanted to return to school to finish her college degree. In doing the legwork of gathering her transcripts for Jean's pursuit, her daughter was surprised to note that Jean had been an excellent student during her time at Lincoln, making As in calculus, differential equations and the like. In 2011, at the ripe-young age of 74, Jean graduated from Spring Hill College with a degree in General Studies. She cherished her time at Spring Hill and often spoke of the wonderful people she encountered along this part of her journey. On April 4, 2016, after years of physical illness, Jean peacefully departed this Earthly life holding the hand of her beloved daughter, Drena, and in the presence of her spiritual daughter, Minister Jennifer Wright. Jean was preceded in death by her beloved grandmother, Mary Lovett Williams; her mother, Willie Mae Taylor; her father, Walter Martin Lewis; aunts, Annie Laura Murray and Jettie Mae Mathew; uncle, Willie Mathew; cousins, William J. Lovett, Jr., Delores Lovett Williams, and Emmaria Vandergroef; dear friend, Juanella Nobles, and husband, Gene William Bassett. Jean Deloris Bassett leaves to cherish her daughter, Dreanna Johnson of Mobile, Alabama; her brother, Otis W. Knight of Tacoma, Washington; her spiritual daughter, Minister Jennifer Wright of Mobile, Alabama; a loving and devoted "bonus" daughter, Sherri LaRuth Nero (Johnson) of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Goddaughter, Yulanda Miller Vanterpool of Mobile, Alabama; college roommate and best friend, Cleretta Blackmon of Mobile, Alabama; devoted cousins Andretta E. Lovett Thomas of Mobile, Alabama, Edith Lovett Perkins of Rahway, New Jersey, Dorothy Bell of Mobile, Alabama, Dione Mathew of Seattle, Washington, and Gertrude Lovett of Fairhope, Alabama; loving and devoted friends Mother Ethel Clark, Janice Bush, Betty White, Olga Antoine, Maxine Watkins, and Bertha McLeod, all of Mobile, Alabama; a host of other family and friends; and her beloved church family at Truevine Missionary Baptist Church with its esteemed pastor, Minister Sandy McQueen, of whom she thought most highly. Visitation will be held at Truevine Missionary Baptist Church at 11:00 a.m. with her homegoing celebration, commencing at Truevine Missionary Baptist at 1:00 p.m. All arrangements are lovingly being prepared by Lovett's Funeral Chapel.
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Bassett Family Association Database
d. 25 Aug 1991, Mobile, Alabama