Francelle J. Buckminster

Francelle J. Buckminster died on Sunday, June 17, at age 91 at Marietta, Ga.

Francelle Jarrard Buckminster was born December 5, 1920, in Hephzibah, Ga., and was the daughter of Clarence Clinton and Ada Martha Highsmith Jarrard.

Clarence Jarrard, her father, was professor of foreign languages at both Berry College in Rome, Ga., and at Emory-at-Oxford in Oxford, Ga.

Francelle received her B.A. degree from Berry College, with postgraduate work done at the University of Alabama, and she received her master’s degree from Peabody-Vanderbilt, as well as doing postgraduate work at Columbia University.

In August of 1944, Dr. A.H. Blankenship, who had established the Oak Ridge school system in 1943 and was also the superintendent of schools, offered Francelle a position to teach English at Oak Ridge High School, where she remained until she took early retirement in 1978.

She was the widow of Hartford E. Buckminster, whom she had married on December 24, 1958, and who at his retirement in 1972, was a procedures specialist in product certification at the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge.

She was a loving, loyal member of the First Christian Church of Oak Ridge. Some of the organizations to which she belonged over the years in Oak Ridge were the College Women’s Club, the Oak Ridge Education Association, the Oak Ridge Retired Teachers’ Association, the Tennessee Education Association, the National Education Association, and the Oak Ridge Woman’s Club, Inc.

Her mother, father, and sisters Floretta Jarrard Stringer and Vista Jarrard Scruggs preceded her in death.

She is survived by four nieces, Patricia Stringer and husband Lewis Leonard of Savannah, Ga., Claire Stringer Rivera and husband Jim Rivera of Canton, Ga., Vista Anne Scruggs Mahan and husband Charles Mahan of Rising Fawn, Ga., and Martha Scruggs Raines and husband Lamar Raines of Ooltewah, Tenn.; two nephews, Dr. Hugh Scruggs of Roanoke, Va., and Harrell Jarrard Stringer of Dallas, Texas; and ten grandnieces and nephews.

Family will receive friends at Martin Funeral Home on Tuesday, June 26, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. A graveside service will be held at the Oak Ridge Memorial Park in the Garden of Everlasting Life section, Lot 17, at 11:30 a.m. the same day, June 26.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to the First Christian Church in Oak Ridge or to the charity of one’s choice.