Jean Fulmer Rogers
Jean Fulmer Rogers, 84, of Alpharetta, Ga., died early Thursday, May 19, 2022, at AccentCare Hospice in Cumming, Ga., after recent hospitalizations from pneumonia.
Jean was born June 25, 1937, in Florence, Ala., moved as a young child to Chattanooga, Tenn., where her mother operated a family grocery and her father a concrete contracting business. She graduated from Chattanooga High School the same year she married her husband of 67 years, James T. Rogers (Jim). This would be an enduring union, initiated not as much by their familiarity at the local St. James Methodist church as by calculated “chance” encounters outside her house under a big oak that gave shade to the car he parked there several blocks from his grocery store job, and to her determination that she had found the one guy for her. He of course was clueless to this but was happily enthralled thereafter by her pluck and resourcefulness that complemented so well his more cautious methodical approach to life.
Jean and Jim started their life together after her high school graduation and his graduation from University of Chattanooga and as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army in Ft. Sill, Okla. There they welcomed first child Deborah within their first year of marriage and a few years later by son Jim after the couple had left the army for civilian life and career back in Chattanooga, to be followed shortly by their third child, Patricia.
Jean’s focus and care from that start to the end of her long life was her family. She loved the beach and was a loyal confidant to friends and to many within her family, including loving relationships with the spouses and friends of her children. Jean held several executive assistant positions throughout an extended working career, starting back in Chattanooga and at each location the family settled. Jean and Jim moved to Elba, Alabama where they raised their children from 1969 to 1980. There Jean worked as the assistant to the superintendent of schools; then to Montgomery after the kids had left for college where she worked for the president of Huntingdon College; and finally, to Atlanta in 1983 where Jean served as assistant to the CEO of a large graphic printing company until her retirement in 1990, and where the kids eventually followed to pursue their careers. In retirement she shifted her loving attention and care to her aging mother and mother-in-law, both who lived into their early 90s, and other ailing family members. Jean was a member of Alpharetta First United Methodist Church since 1987 that became their final church home in a beloved community that they selected for retirement, and where she helped raise and spoil four grandkids.
A memorial service was held Sunday, May 22, 2022, at Alpharetta First United Methodist Church. The family received friends in the church narthex shortly before the service in the main sanctuary, followed by a reception for all friends and family.
Funeral services and interment were held the following day, Monday, May 23, at Chattanooga Memorial Park Cemetery (501 Memorial Dr., Red Bank, TN 37415). Funeral arrangements were coordinated through Northside Chapel, Roswell, Ga.
Donations in lieu of flowers are suggested and should be made to Alpharetta First Unit Methodist Church.
Jean is preceded in death by her parents, Q.D. Fulmer and Pearl Broadfoot; her brother, James Herndon Fulmer; and her daughter, Deborah Jean (2015).
Survivors include her husband, Jim; son, Jim (Ximena); daughter, Tricia (Doug); and four grandchildren, Alex Green (Alexis), Jim Rogers III, Harrison Green, and Hannah Rogers.