Thelma Jean Dailey

On July 9, 2024, at the age of 95, Thelma Jean (Brown) Dailey went home to be with her Savior. She was the wife of the Rev. Parker Stokes Dailey for almost 74 years, mother of three and grandmother of five, all of whom loved and admired her and will miss her dearly until we are reunited in Heaven.

Jean was born on December 15, 1928, to Marvin Freeman Brown and Tommie Myrtle (Wilson) Brown in Noonday, Texas. She grew up on a small farm there with eight brothers and sisters, through the throes of the Great Depression. Brought up in the local Baptist church, she professed her faith in Jesus Christ at an early age.

After graduating from high school and completing a one-year business school in Tyler, she attended the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth to prepare for some type of full-time ministry. During her first year there, she met Parker Dailey, the new student from far-away Kansas City, and quickly fell in love. Denominational leaders sent Parker to pastor a small church in Columbia, Tenn., after just one semester of seminary, so their romance continued via the U.S. Postal Service. While continuing her studies, Jean worked as a secretary to the seminary president and became known for a prodigious ability to recite lengthy Bible passages. After two years of studies, she moved to Springfield, Missouri, to work for the new Baptist Bible Tribune. On November 30, 1950, in Springfield, she and Parker were married.

A year later they left Columbia to return to his hometown of Kansas City, and in November 1954, they launched their life’s work together, the Blue Ridge Baptist Temple. Parker pastored the church until his retirement in 1996, with Jean faithfully and unflaggingly at his side — or at the church organ, or leading the women’s Bible study — through those 42 years. They raised three children — Brenda Kay, Ruth Ann and Brian. Besides their own children, many thousands came to faith in Jesus Christ during their decades at Blue Ridge.

Jean was a great lover of music. While in Tennessee, she and Parker would drive to Nashville for all-night gospel concerts at the Ryman Auditorium. After only six months of piano lessons in young adulthood, she could get around the keyboard as if she’d been playing her whole life. She made sure her three children studied piano from first grade to high school graduation — and a second instrument too — driving them to countless music lessons all over the city. Even when dementia had stolen so much from her, she could still sightread from the All-American Church Hymnal and play her favorites from memory.

Jean was always reading something — only non-fiction, usually biographies or devotional books — and she kept pocket-size Bibles tucked in every pocket of both family cars so one was always within reach. She listened to the Bible on cassette tape while she cleaned house. Within the home, the most time-consuming work she did was managing Parker’s adult diabetes.

Jean was preceded in death by her father Marvin, her mother Tommie, her daughter Brenda Kay, and her siblings Mary, Lois, Robert, Marvin Jr., Douglas, Florence, Doris, and Ann. She is survived by her husband Parker, her children Ruth Ann (husband Andrew) and Brian (wife Anne), and grandchildren Alex, Aaron, and Emma Baker and Shannon and Rylan Dailey.

A funeral service will be held Friday, July 19, at Manna Fellowship Church, 17617 S Route 291, Pleasant Hill, MO, 64080. Visitation will be at 10 a.m. and the service at 11 a.m.