A private funeral will be held for 63-year-old Jean Fisher (née Kraenzle) was born on September 28th, 1959, at the Perry County Memorial Hospital to Marcella and Cletus Kraenzle.
The middle child between her older sister and lifelong friend, Patricia, and her younger brother Cletus Jr., lovingly known as Cletie, she grew up on the family farm on State Route M in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, riding bikes through fields, nursing calves, and weeding her grandparents’ ever-growing garden.
She attended Valle Catholic School where she made a group of girlfriends she was to keep her entire life. There she became interested in the arts, an interest that she would later inherit to her children. Outside of Tastee Freez in 1977, her friend Jody Okenfuss introduced her to a redheaded carpenter named Brad Fisher, who she began dating and would marry in 1982. They shared a love for travel and together they backpacked across Europe for their honeymoon in 1984.
After working at Ste. Genevieve County Memorial Hospital and the old Mercantile Bank, her and Brad decided to move to Florida in 1986 for a new adventure. In 1987, she gave birth to her first son, Ian, and they lived in Pompano Beach until moving back to Missouri in 1991. Two years later, she had her second child and first daughter, Morgan.
Upon returning home, she worked as a florist and in banking until taking a job at Lakenan Insurance, where she would work until retiring nearly two decades later.
In 1996, she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer and immediately started treatments. Her fight would continue for the rest of her life and would come to define her humble, inspiring, resilient character that endeared her to her community. Jean inspired and gave hope to hundreds of men and women fighting cancer, both locally and far beyond.
She was integral in her support and contribution to the building of a dedicated Oncology wing at SGCMH, serving on fundraising committees, contributing ideas from a patient’s perspective, speaking to local groups on behalf of the fundraising efforts, and working hands-on with many marketing and fundraising events. Jean saw the fruition of her hard work in the building of the Alan Lyss Center for Cancer Care and Clinical Research at SGCMH in 2000.
Jean will always be remembered by the many who loved her for her warmth and kindness. Her smile through good times and bad. She passed peacefully at home in the house where she grew up on the afternoon of April 2nd, 2023, surrounded by family. She will be missed as a daughter, wife, mother, and friend, but the love that she brought into this world will live on.
Services will be private.
There will be a Celebration of Life on July 16, 2023 at the Watertower Winery
Memorials may be made to Mercy Hospice.
Online condolences can be left at www.baslerfuneralhome.com
To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Jean, please visit our floral store.
Published by Basler Funeral Home, Inc. – Ste. Genevieve on Apr. 4, 2023.