Jean Coffman

Visitation: Thursday, July 26, 2007 at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home in Miles City.

Funeral Service: Friday, July 27, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. at Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home in Miles City.

Interment: Custer County Cemetery

Jean (Trzcinski) Coffman was born March 5, 1927, in Miles City, MT. She was the daughter of Blanche and Charles E. Trzcinski also residents of Miles City. Jean passed away July 22, 2007 following complications of emphysema at Holy Rosary Hospital in Miles City, MT.

Jean attended Lincoln Elementary school and Custer County High School, graduating in the class of 1944. She attended the PEO sisterhood Cottey College in Nevada, MO., graduating there in the class of 1946, and then attended the University of Montana where she earned her BA degree in 1948. In June of 2007, she received her PEO certificate of sixty years of membership in Chapter K, P.E.O. Montana. While attending Cottey College, she met her future husband, Dick (Richard C.) Coffman. Dick at the time was awaiting military call up to the Army Counterintelligence Corps' (CIC) Japanese Language School. Following Dick's return from CIC military service in Japan, they were married three days after Christmas in 1948, in the Miles City First Presbyterian Church. They made their home in Columbia, MO where

Dick was attending the University of Missouri. There Jean worked as secretary to the Dean of Engineering and was elected by the engineering students there as the Queen of Erin Go Braugh. Their first home at the University was a twenty-seven foot travel trailer they had purchased, as housing was otherwise unavailable. The University had grown from a campus of 3000 to 30,000 as the returning GIs began flooding college campuses under the GI Bill. Missouri was very prone to ice storms which frequently knocked out electrical power, so Jean learned to make candles, heat and cook with kerosene. Early in 1951 Dick withdrew from graduate school and accepted a commission in the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a Special Agent. Dick's first assignment was to Boston, MA. While in Boston, Jean worked in and appeared in the movie, 'Walk East on Beacon Street' directed by Otto Preminger. The movie was of a closed, real FBI case and utilized several Agents and Agent's wives. During the making of the movie Jean often met the Director and several of the FBI officials from Washington FBI Headquarters who were consultants to the making of the movie.

The following year Dick was transferred to Washington, D.C. and they rented a house in nearby Riverdale, MD. In mid-summer Jean returned to Miles City for the birth of their son Bruce. Soon after returning to Maryland with her new son, she and Dick bought a home in Fairfax County, VA., a few miles from George Washington's Mount Vernon plantation. Here four years later their daughter,Lizbeth Lee, was born and Jean did the den mother and cookies routine. She was active in the local PEO chapter, eventually being elected President of Chapter. In her spare time she worked as a substitute teacher and as a tour guide and hostess for the National Heritage Trust Foundation at several of the historic Colonial homes and estates in the area. Also, she attended the Sports Car Club of America competition driving school and raced and won first in class with Dick's MG English Sports Car at the local Marlborough Sports Car Track located in Marlborough, MD. She was elected the perennial trophy chairman of the MG Car Club and the Jaguar Owners Club of North America. She and Dick regularly took their small children in the equally small back seats of their MG or Jaguar on Sunday afternoon street-legal road rallies. As Sports Cars became more and more domesticated and housebroken, Jean began flying lessons and earned her FAA pilot's license in 1966. Three years later Dick gave her a Piper Colt aircraft completely refurbished with a new engine and custom paint job, a type of airplane similar to the one in which she had earned her license. About this time she was accepted into the Amelia Earhart founded International Organization of Women Pilots, the 99s. In this organization she got to meet and frequently fly with some of the early pioneer women pilots who had been contemporaries of Amelia Earhart. She assisted in putting on some of their local, national and international events in the Washington, D.C. area.

To help keep the aircraft's fuel tank full, Jean acquired her real estate agent's license and began selling property in the Northern Virginia Area. She was very successful and made many mends and contacts in this endeavor. A couple of whom upon learning from their conversation that she was from Montana, mentioned to her that they had had one of the best meals ever at a log cabin diner in Miles City, MT. Imagine that! In 1970, Dick was assigned to produce and film a classified Foreign Counter Intelligence training movie for the FBI Academy at Quantico, VA. His script called for aerial scenes of Washington, D.C. and the (then) National Airport located just across the Potomac River from Washington,

D.C. Jean got permission from the FAA to remove the passenger side door of her aircraft in order that Dick could maneuver the professional movie film camera for the desired aerial scenes. One scene involved her putting the aircraft into a side-slip as she descended toward the long jet runway at National Airport. Her handling of the aircraft permitted a most dramatic effect in the completed movie. The training movie was used for several years at the Academy. In 1974 she flew her airplane from Virginia to Miles City, accompanied by her son, then a teenager, for her thirtieth Custer County High School Class Reunion. She was met at Frank Wiley Field by Ava and Nancy Mitchell and their photo was carried in the Star. Jean's daughter once described Jean as a witch to a classmate and Jean promptly named her aircraft The Broomstick, and operated as Broomstick airlines whose motto was the airline that never loss a passenger's luggage.

In the mid 1970s, Dick received a transfer to Salt Lake City, UT., so while Dick and Bruce reported to the Salt Lake Office, Jean remained temporarily in Virginia and arranged and produced their daughter's wedding, closed down her real estate business, sold their house, gathered up their two Maltese puppies and brought her aircraft to Salt Lake City. Shortly thereafter she designed and supervised the building and furnishing their dream home in Sandy, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. While in Utah Jean and Dick were commissioned Colonels in the Confederate Air Force (recently having to change the name to TheCommorative Air Force) (CAF), an organization that restores and flies World War II (WWII) line aircraft in air shows put on by the CAF throughout the U.S. At the Salt Lake City air shows Jean was assigned as fuel officer for the authorizing and overseeing the fueling of aircraft flown in the show. As her reward for this volunteer work she got to fly several WW II fighters and major training planes used during the war. A high point for her was getting dual instruction in and the flying of a Boeing Flying Fortress B-17 four engine bomber.

When Dick reached the newly established Congressional retirement age of Special Agents, they began making their plans to eventually fully retire and move to Miles City. In 1996, they were able to find and build a home there. During the completion of the furnishing of this home, Jean suffered a stroke that curtailed most of her desired activities.

Jean is survived by her husband Dick of Miles City, son Bruce Coffman of Santa Barbara, CA, daughter Lee Gray of Dale City, VA and her sister Ruth Schott of Miles City. She has two granddaughters, Kimberly Coffman of Santa Barbara and Jessica Gray of Dale City.