Jean Snyder

Doris Jean Snyder, neé Robison, was born October 5, 1938 in Hugo, Oklahoma to Elmo Jefferson and Doris Lucille (Tyree) Robison. The only girl with three brothers, Jean's family worked a small dairy farm until WWII when the family and many other Oklahomans migrated to California to work in the Sausalito shipyards outside San Francisco. As the war neared an end, the family moved back to Oklahoma.

After graduating with high honors from Hugo High School in 1956, Jean worked for The Dallas Morning News before enrolling in the US Navy in 1957 where she rose to the rank of 2nd Class Petty Officer. Jean was incredibly proud of her service as an Air Traffic Controller in Jacksonville, FL where she was promoted to Tower Watch Supervisor that included coordinating air-sea search and rescue and submarine reconnaissance. Jean served four years in the US Navy and was honorably discharged.

After the Navy, Jean had a varied career as an airline stewardess for National Airlines, Executive Secretary at Continental Oil Company (now Conoco), and administrative roles at the USDA Forest Service, US Geological Survey, and financial services companies. In between she attended Oklahoma A&M College, now known as Oklahoma State University ("Go, Cowboys!"), and majored in Special Education. 

Jean met her husband, Richard Snyder, while working at the USDA Forest Service office in Hamilton, MT. Soon after they were married and both enjoyed a lifelong love for Montana and the great outdoors.

Jean loved quilting, crochet, needlepoint, canning produce from her elaborate gardens, singing Alto and Tenor parts in church choir, watching NCAA basketball championship games (men's and women's), reading absolutely everything, and opera - particularly Placido Domingo, Leontyne Price, and Jessye Norman. She preferred white chocolate to dark and was renown for her peach cobbler and homemade lemon meringue and rhubarb pies.

Jean is survived by her husband of 53 years, Richard Keyes Snyder, daughter Rebekah Snyder Bonde and her husband Paul Bonde, and her son Richard Jefferson Snyder and his husband Michael Greene.