Jean Wilson Banks

Jean Wilson Banks, 93, passed away Saturday, May 14, 2011 in Richfield. He was born September 20, 1917 in Yankton, South Dakota to Will Carlton and Rachel Everett Banks. At the age of six years his mother passed away, at which time he went to live with his paternal grandparents in Lynd, Minnesota. He graduated from Lynd High School.

Following graduation from high school he went to Washington state where he worked in the gold mines and at a saw mill for a short time. He then joined the Marine Corps in 1937. While in the Marine Corps he served on Guam and was later stationed with the Marine battalion serving in the Shanghai conflict in Shanghai, China.

Jean was then sent to Honolulu, Hawaii where he was stationed at Pearl Harbor and where he met and married his beautiful native Hawaiian maiden, Ella Kuikuiehu Keanini on November 1, 1941. She preceded him in death in November 2004, after 63 years of marriage.

While still newlyweds, Jean & Ella were living in the Navy housing at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 when the bombing of Pearl Harbor took place. They had many interesting experience during this time. They spent the rest of WWII stationed in the Hawaiian Islands. Their four children were all born in Hawaii: Clayre (Dr. De N., deceased) Jones, Jeanne (Roger T) Ogden, Val (James P) Miller, Eugene Wilson (Evelyn) Banks. They have 28 grandchildren, 84 great-grandchildren and 27 great-great-grandchildren.

Jean remained in the Marine Corps until 1949 at which time he transferred to the Army Air Corps and then to the US Air Force where he was a special weapons instructor. He retired from the military in 1959. He spent several years following retirement working for the civil service at the Tooele Army Depot in Tooele, Utah and at the Poulsbo Torpedo Naval Station in Poulsbo, Washington, He and Ella then retired to Tolleson, Arizona where they remained until Jean moved to Sigurd to stay with his daughter, Jeanne.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. in the Magleby Mortuary Chapel, 50 South 100 West, Richfield.

Friends may call at the mortuary in Richfield after 3:30 p.m.

Burial with military rites will be held Monday, May 23, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. in the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix.

Funeral Directors: Magleby Mortuary, Richfield, Salina and Manti.

The family would like to thank the staff of the Beehive Home for their loving and dedicated care to Dad while in their care.