Jeanne L Nuechterlein, 93, died Saturday, April 27, 2019.  Born December 6, 1925, she was a daughter to the late Otto and Irma (Kubicek) Smallwood.

Jeanne majored in music at Wayne University and then went on to receive her Bachelor degree in English from St. Francis College and a Masters degree in English literature from Purdue University.  She taught literature and composition at St. Francis and Purdue in Fort Wayne.  She also taught at Lincoln Park Lutheran parochial school in Lincoln Park, Michigan and at Emmanuel Lutheran School in Fort Wayne.  She was co-founder of Hope Alive, Inc., Co-Director of Woman's Work at Ivy Tech, YWCA Adult Director, and Editor of Corporate Communications at Mutual Security Life Insurance Company, and Executive Director of Three Rivers Literacy Alliance.  She was a freelance writer and poet and had articles and poems published in a variety of magazines.  She played clarinet in the Fort Wayne New Horizons Band and the Folk Orchestra of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Wayne of which she was a member.  Jeanne was also a soloist with the Senior College Cantata Singers and Emmanuel Lutheran Church Choir.  She was chair of the music committee of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation and actively involved with Sisters Over Seventy of the Congregation.

Jeanne is survived by sons, John (Linda) of Fort Wayne and Brian Nuechterlein of Hawaii; brother, Steve (Lois) Smallwood; four grandchildren; five great grandchildren, and one great-great granddaughter.

Jeanne was preceded in death by her husband, Herbert Nuechterlein, in 2008;a daughter, Andrea Curl; brother, Donald Smallwood; sister, Betty McKenzie, and grandson, Stephen Nuechterlein.

Memorial service will be 12:00 noon, Saturday, May 18, 2019 at Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 5310 Old Mill Rd., with calling two hours prior.  She was laid to rest at Covington Memorial Gardens.  Memorials to the Bach Collegium, Fort Wayne SPCA or the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Wayne.