Jean Marie Workman, one of Churchill County’s oldest residents, has passed from this life into the presence of God after 102 years and 20 days of living. Jean was born in Rosemead, California on February 17, 1921, and died in her Fallon home on Workman Road on March 9, 2023. She was preceded in death by her infant son Timothy Rawson, her parents Russell and Martha Rawson, her husband, Rex Workman, and her daughter, Lani (Art) Peel. Jean is survived by her son, David (Louise) Workman; 6 grandchildren, Tim Peel, Jeff (Dana) Peel, Cheryl (Andy) Gallio, Tami (John) Gormley, Rebecca (Jason) Trento & Mike (Christa) Workman, along with 12 great-grandchildren and 8 great-great-grandchildren.
Jean has seen our world change drastically during her century of life. She was raised during the Great Depression the daughter of a steel worker in southern California. She met her future husband, Rex, during high school days and they later married in June 1942 after Pearl Harbor and Rex’s enlistment in the Army Air Corp. Separated by Rex’s deployment to the South Pacific, she lived with her parents raising her firstborn daughter, Lani. After Rex’s return their military family of three moved around the country, Arizona, South Carolina, and Washington as Rex trained new pilots until the end of War II.
Settling back in Southern California they moved around a bit as Rex tried his hand at commercial trucking, farming (his first love), and laying hardwood floors in all the new tracks of homes being built in those post-war years. During that time Jean suffered multiple miscarriages until David was born in 1949. It was a few years later that Jean attended a small bible study with a neighbor lady and became a Christian, which defined her life for the next 70 years.
In 1957 Rex, Jean, and family moved to Fallon as Rex had the opportunity to pursue farming, which he longed to do. Upon her arrival at the farm, she found a little house with walls made of railroad ties that she turned into a loving home for her family for the next 16 years until Rex was able to build her current home in 1973. Over her next 66 years in Fallon city-girl, Jean learned to be a farm wife, raising, butchering, and freezing pigs, turkeys, and chickens for family use along with canning vegetables and fruit from the family garden that she raised. She helped sell hearts of gold cantaloupes with a host of other Workman-grown produce at the family stand on the Reno Highway that Rex and his nephew, Ted Workman, had for 20 years.
In addition to all the domestic tasks needed for family upkeep, Jean loved to be creative dabbling in painting, ceramic doll-making, and her specialty of making and decorating wedding cakes for her family and church friends. Jean became a member of the First Baptist Church (later became Parkside Bible Fellowship) and soon volunteered to teach the 4 & 5-year-old class of boys and girls, which she continued to do for the next 35 years! One could often walk into her home to find Jean at her kitchen table studying her bible as she prayed and prepared for her next class lesson. Over the course of her adult life in simple, quiet ways Jean devoted herself to loving her God and her family. We have been blessed by God to have her in our lives all this time and we look forward to our reunion with her in Jesus’ presence.
There will be a viewing at The Gardens Funeral Home from 4:00-6:00 p.m. on Friday, April 14, 2023. Burial will be private, but friends are invited to a celebration of life at Parkside Bible Fellowship on Saturday, April 15th at 3:00 p.m. followed by a reception.
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