Jeanne Felts Ifft

Jeanne Felts Ifft, 71, of Falls Church, Va., passed away on Sun­day (June 5, 2011) from com­pli­ca­tions fol­low­ing heart bypass surgery at her local hospital.

She was born Dec. 19, 1939, in Delaware, to long-time Delaware math teacher Ray­mond Felts and Ardith (Cox) Felts. She grad­u­ated from Willis High School in Delaware in 1958, where she was co-valedictorian of her class. In 1962, she grad­u­ated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Eng­lish from Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity. At OWU, Jeanne was an offi­cer in Delta Gamma soror­ity and pres­i­dent of Mor­tar Board Honor Soci­ety. She earned an M.A. in Eng­lish from Ohio State Uni­ver­sity and taught Eng­lish from 1962 to 1967 at Upper Arling­ton High School in Colum­bus, where she also spon­sored the yearbook.

In 1967, Jeanne mar­ried Dr. Edward Ifft of But­ler, Pa., and the cou­ple moved to Falls Church, Va. Prior to start­ing a fam­ily, Jeanne worked for the MITRE Cor­po­ra­tion in McLean, Va. She lived for extended peri­ods in Vienna, Aus­tria, and Geneva, Switzer­land, while her hus­band was work­ing in arms con­trol nego­ti­a­tions. She devoted much of her life to her fam­ily and chose to raise her two chil­dren as a lov­ing and ded­i­cated homemaker.

Jeanne was a tal­ented pianist with a life­long love of music, and served as an accom­pa­nist and organ­ist through­out Delaware dur­ing her time as a res­i­dent. Fol­low­ing in her mother’s foot­steps, she had a pas­sion for geneal­ogy and became a mem­ber of the Delaware chap­ter of the Daugh­ters of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion (DAR). She later served as an offi­cer in the Falls Church, Va., chap­ter of the DAR. She com­bined her love of lit­er­a­ture, fam­ily and geneal­ogy by writ­ing sev­eral short sto­ries based on her fam­ily research. Jeanne was also very active in her local neigh­bor­hood asso­ci­a­tion and her children’s schools. After grow­ing up in William Street United Methodist Church in Delaware, she became a leader of sev­eral women’s groups at her local Methodist church in Virginia.

Jeanne is sur­vived by her hus­band of 44 years, Dr. Edward Ifft of Falls Church, Va., and by a son, John Ifft, of Fair­fax, Va., and daugh­ter, Sharon Ifft, of Falls Church. She also has many remain­ing rel­a­tives through­out Cen­tral Ohio.

A funeral will be held on Sun­day, June 12 at Mur­phy Funeral Home in Falls Church, Va. (703–533-0341). She will be interred at Oak Grove Ceme­tery in Delaware later this summer.

Posted by Staff Reports Obits on Jun 9 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.