Jeanne Bryant Schulze Mcgraw 7/7/1927 — 7/4/2017

Our mother, Jeanne McGraw, spent her final days surrounded by family in Billings Clinic. My brothers, Dan and Paul Schulze, and I, Lana Sangmeister, along with our respective spouses, Becky and Teri Schulze and Charles Sangmeister, and extended family, said our final goodbyes to Mom on July 4, 2017. She was just shy of her 90th birthday, which was a milestone she would have been very pleased to reach. As she humorously said recently, her body was a wreck.

Mom was born on 7-7-27 (her lucky numbers), to parents Walter and Pauline Bryant, on a homestead southeast of Jordan. She had many fond memories of her family's homesteading years, which she loved to share right up to the end. She started her education riding horseback behind an older brother to a one-room country school. When the homestead was taken for Fort Peck Dam, she continued her education in the boomtown of Wheeler, then Glasgow, and in Glendive. After her father had broken his back working on the dam, the family moved to the Vancouver, Washington, area for work in the shipyards during WWII. There, she graduated high school.

She married our father, Ray Schulze, in the Portland/Vancouver area in 1946 after he was discharged from the service. They moved back to Montana shortly afterward and settled in Billings. They divorced after 30 years together. During their marriage, they enjoyed square dancing and camping, which instilled in us a great love of the outdoors. She later married Peter McGraw. After they retired, they moved to Las Vegas, where they enjoyed many happy years. We moved Mom back home to Billings in 2010. Shortly afterward, she became a resident of St. John's Lutheran Ministries.

Mom had a wonderful sense of humor, loved to have fun, and was very witty. She was known for her quick comebacks and could hold her own in any conversation. One could say that she was an extrovert in the extreme, preferring always to be around people. In her heyday, she was colorful to the point of being outrageous, thereby giving us many fond memories and adding greatly to our family lore. It was no unusual for her to send cards which included poetry that she had written. She was uniquely creative and found innovative ways to recycle and reuse.

She was a good role model in many ways. We never heard her complain, although at times she had a very challenging life. When faced with adversity, she always picked herself up and forged ahead! She believed in eating right, which manifested itself in what we called "her twigs and berries diet." After retirement, she loved to read, travel, play cards, and did hospital volunteer work for 13 years in Las Vegas. Believing that nothing was better than walking, she was devastated when her knees gave out. She rehabilitated from a knee replacement at the age of 86, which was a blessing, because she was a very scary motorized chair driver!

Mom was the third oldest in a family of nine children. She is survived by us, her children and our spouses; seven grandchildren, Danyel, Travis (Christina) and Lisa Schulze, LaRell (Jim) Baldwin, and Shane (Julie) and Cade Schulze, all of Billings, and Craig (Kim) Nash of Littleton, Colorado. Also surviving are seven great-grandchildren; two step-great-grandchildren; four stepdaughters and their families; our aunts Audrey, Sharon and Dorcas of Portland, Oregon, and our uncle Butchie of Washington and Arizona, and their families. She was predeceased by our stepfather, Peter McGraw, in 1996; her parents; four siblings and a daughter-in-law.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America by using the "Donate Now" button on their web page at http://myasthenia.org/.

The family is planning a private memorial at a later date.