Brown, Jean Margaret Young

Dates

• Existence: 1932 - 2011

Biography

Jean “Jeanne” Margaret Young Brown, was born in Rochester, New York, in 1932. She spent the last 18 years of her life in Newport, working as a reference librarian at Newport Public Library and continuing her lifelong support of civic, educational and social justice causes. As a member of the Circle of Scholars at Salve Regina University, she researched the history and the people associated with the William Watts Sherman house. Her notes and copies of collected primary and secondary resources related to the William Watts Sherman House, William Watts Sherman and his ancestors in the Watts and Wetmore families, and Gilded Age architecture in Newport are housed in the university’s Special Collections.

In 1956, she married David William Brown, a Connecticut-born Ph.D. student in agricultural economics, and together they raised two children, Cheryl and Kevin. David Brown’s work in outreach education and international technical aid programs led to a life largely overseas for more than three decades. Jeanne pursued her lifelong commitment to social justice and educational programs, while also earning a Master of Laws degree in Singapore and later, a master’s degree in Library Science. She often engaged in local civic and social justice efforts, whether it was teaching English as a second language in Peru, serving on law enforcement boards in Tennessee to establish programs and services for juvenile offenders, or organizing a reference collection for a national museum in Jakarta.

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