Evelyn T Kemery

EVELYN THOMAS KEMERY, age 91, went to be with her Lord and Savior on January 17, 2016. Memorial services will be conducted 11:00am, Saturday, January 30, 2016 at Cedar Hills Church, 227 McGhee Rd, Kootenai, Idaho. Interment took place in Pinecrest Memorial Park, in Sandpoint, ID. Born on November 18, 1924, in Denver, Colorado to Walter and Frieda Thomas, she attended schools in Sandpoint, Idaho and graduated in 1942 and then in 1946 from the University of Idaho with a B.A. in Music Education. She then taught at Rochester Institute of Technology (NY) and at a Teacher’s Training School in France before returning to her hometown, Sandpoint, Idaho to teach grade school. While in France, she met her husband-to-be, Peter Kemery, from England, also teaching there. They got married two years later by Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones (at Evelyn’s request), in Westminster Chapel in London, England in 1952. While Peter was finishing his last year at Oxford University, she worked for a marketing research company for one year. Upon graduation from Oxford, Peter’s first (and only) job was with Shell Oil Company, which sent him and Evelyn first to the Philippines (for four years) and then to India (for five years). During this time their first three children were born. Their fourth child, Sarah Garay, was born after they ended their overseas service and started to work in the US and now lives in Katy, Texas. When in India, she started homeschooling her children. Later, in Houston, she taught both her daughters to play the violin, one son to play the clarinet, and the other to play the drums, all instruments which she had mastered in her music studies. Her children continue to enjoy her gift of music. Her daughter, Becky, played many instruments like her mother and even played professionally for a number of years. Their oldest daughter, Becky, who was born in the Philippines, died in 2012, age 56, of bone cancer. Their two sons, Timothy and Jonathon, live in Idaho. When transferred from Shell’s head-quarters in New York to Houston in 1969, they joined Spring Branch Community Church and Evelyn became involved in starting and operating the church library for thirty years, until her Alzheimer’s disease started to incapacitate her. From the start of her married life, she was a wonderful homemaker and hostess, not only to family and friends, but also to international students away from their home countries. She had them come for meals, on special occasions as many as twenty at one time, or for all day picnics or for weekend camping trips, always providing delicious meals. She also had many houseguests staying in the guestroom for days, weeks, months - one even for three years. During the last few years of her life, increasingly unable to function, she continued to show her sweet and loving disposition.