Jean Ann Nimrod

Jean Ann Nimrod, 85, of Greenville, MS died peacefully in her sleep at her home on March 13, 2022. Jean Ann was a loving wife, mother and grandmother.

Jean Ann was born on November 29, 1936, in Hamburg, Iowa to Ted Hansen and Madeline Bergstrom Hansen, her biological Mother. Her adoptive Mother, at an early age, was Margaret Dane Hansen. Jean Ann grew up in Iowa and Scottsdale, AZ.

Jean Ann met Vance Nimrod, a waiter with “beautiful red curls,” in her dormitory’s dining hall at Iowa State University. After they graduated in 1959, Jean Ann worked for Farm Journal Magazine in Philadelphia, PA and Vance worked in Connecticut. They married in 1961 and lived in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Indiana before moving to Greenville, MS. They had two children. Alison is a scientist at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, IN and Peter is Chief Engineer of the Mississippi Levee Board. Jean Ann worked at the Delta Democrat Times when she first moved to Greenville before turning to art full time.

Jean Ann was a very accomplished artist for over 60 years using several media including oils, acrylics, pastels, watercolors and pen and ink. Her paintings were both traditional and abstract. She did both portraits and landscapes. Many of her paintings included her children and grandchildren and scenes of her home, yard, dreams and the Delta. All had a bold look with many colors and patterns. She participated in several artist group shows of paintings and had a well-received retrospective of over fifty paintings that were both new and old at the Jake and Frieda Stein Art Gallery in Greenville in 2019. She derived much joy from her family and enjoyed giving art lessons to children and participating in Bible study. Jean Ann lived a very reflective and prayerful life. She loved her studies of theology and Jungian psychoanalysis at Spring Hill in Mobile and in Zurich, Switzerland. Along her path she filled hundreds of journals with reflections and prayers. Jean Ann really appreciated the beauty of the land, architecture and the people of her adopted state of Mississippi. One of her favorite things to do was take an evening car ride with Vance around the Delta.

Jean Ann is survived by her husband, Vance; daughter Alison (Rhett) Perkins; son Peter (Allison) Nimrod; five grandchildren Dillon, Paxton, Walker, Elizabeth, and Brantley; siblings sister Patricia (Doug) Shadle of Houston, Texas, sister Barbara (Bill) Straube of Oregon and brother Jay (Barbara) Hansen of Washington State.

The funeral will be at St. James Episcopal Church at 3:00 p.m. Sunday, March 20, 2022. There will be a visitation hour at 2:00 p.m. at the church. Arrangements are under the direction of Boone Funeral Home, Greenville.

Several events seemed to come together in the last week of her life. Her daughter and son-in-law from Indianapolis came to visit; she watched her granddaughter, Brantley, win a handful of blue ribbons at her track meet; she rode to Oxford and ate lunch with grandsons, Paxton and Walker, both students at Ole Miss; her husband escorted and assisted her to the communion rail at church for both ashes and communion on Ash Wednesday; she attended a birthday party for a dear friend; she and Vance went on multiple drives; and she, with several family members, went to Peter and Allison’s Sherman’s Restaurant for dinner twice in one week.

A note from a young friend summed up Jean Ann’s life as follows: “She really danced until the music stopped, and that’s the thought that comes to mind, which I believe might be how she’d see her life too.”

Jean Ann will be missed.

In lieu of flowers, a memorial may be made in her honor to the Greenville Arts Council.