A celebration of the life of Jean Box, followed by the interment of ashes in the ORUUC Memorial Garden, will take place on Sunday, Aug. 11 at 3 p.m.
The service is open to the entire community. All are welcome, although no one should feel obligated to attend. Most of the obituary below was written in advance by Jean herself.
Jean Newton Box, age 98, passed away peacefully on Friday, April 26, 2024 at Commonwealth Assisted Living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Mrs. Box and her family have appreciated her longevity and the love and friendship she has experienced from so many persons throughout her life.
Jean Newton Box was born in Maywood, Illinois, June 13, 1925, to Leon and Viola Newton. He was a locomotive engineer and she was an elementary school teacher. Jean grew up in this western suburb of Chicago in a musical family. At nine, she moved from piano to flute, which she played into her nineties.
She graduated from Cornell College in Iowa in 1947 with a major in Sociology and a plan to become a social worker. Her first position after college was in an American Friends Service Committee student program for attendants at the New Jersey Psychiatric Hospital in Trenton. There she met another student who was learning about counseling in mental illness. That was Howard Box who was attending Yale University preparing for the ministry. They kept in touch through their further education and first jobs and married in 1952. She found the position of minister’s wife quite to her liking and saw the opportunity to use her social work skills in their congregations.
The Unitarian Church in Newburgh, NY, was the first of four congregations Rev. and Mrs. Box lived in. They then moved to the Unitarian Church in Ottawa, Canada. It was an interesting experience to live in another country. Daughter Ruth and son Gordon were both born there and have dual Canadian and American citizenship. Howard was serving their next congregation when Carol was born. It was very similar to the Unitarian denomination: the Society for Ethical Culture in Brooklyn, NY. Through most of her life, Jean had various part-time jobs in social work or positions on boards. And in Brooklyn she and two other members used their musical skills to perform together for their own and other congregations in the NY City area. The last congregation that Howard served was The Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Ridge, TN, starting in 1976. In this city Jean was in the Community Band, the Symphony Orchestra, played solos and accompanied the church choir. She gave private flute lessons to 150 students in the Music Arts School from 1980 to 2000. Rev. Box retired in 1991. They continued to live active lives in Oak Ridge.
In 2018, they moved into Commonwealth Senior Living where Howard died in 2021 after 68 years of marriage.
The Boxes are survived by daughter Ruth Westfall of Mahomet, IL, son Gordon Box (Betsy Williams) of Durham, NC, and daughter Carol Box (Alessandro Nicita) in Switzerland, where he works for the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva. Grandchildren are Robert Westfall, and Sofia and Matteo Nicita.
Memorial contributions in Jean’s honor may be made to the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church or to the charity of one’s choice.
To learn more about the Reverend Howard Box, visit https://uuma.org/remembering-the-living-tradition/in-memory-of-howard-box-may-22-1926-april-15-2021/