We Remember ... Heroes of the Faith at St. Michael's - Jean Klue

JEAN KLUE
26 May 1915 – 17 June 1974

Jean and her sister were educated at an Ursuline convent boarding school at Tildonk in Belgium, as was their mother before them. This probably built the foundations of her strong faith. She married Douglas Klue at Christ Church, Turnham Green in 1938 and they lived in a flat in Sutton Court, when her commitment to St Michael’s began. They moved to Park Road during World War II and Jean used to tell the story of being woken on the night the V-2 Rocket landed on Staveley Road. She said to Douglas ‘we’ve been hit’. His response was something like ‘you’re imagining it’ to which she replied ‘it’s alright for you, I’ve got the window frames on my bed’ – and she had! Both her son John (1943-2003) and her daughter Linda, born in 1950, attended Sunday School at St Michael’s when Revd Manning was the vicar.

Jean suffered her first heart attack at 36, when Linda was a baby, but this did not prevent her from a life filled with voluntary activities. She started the Belfairs Trolley Shop with others from the congregation such as Greta Miller and Molly and Kay Pownell. She organized coffee mornings in the old church hall on Wednesday mornings after Holy Communion and she regularly volunteered serving tea to the residents at St Joseph’s Convent (as St Mary’s was then known).

Her kitchen table was regularly the venue for groups making crafts to sell at the Garden Party, then held in the Vicarage garden; she served on the PCC and was involved in very many activities at St Michael’s during the incumbencies of the Revds Manning, Richardson and Oatey. It was Michael Oatey who conducted her funeral service when she died suddenly, just after her 59th birthday. A lasting memorial is the lovely magnolia tree which she helped to plant in the church garden and on which the children of the area enjoy climbing.