It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Jeanne Rae Mitchell Burns on February 9, 2025. She died peacefully at home in Mariposa after a two year struggle with multiple strokes and related issues. She had just turned 79 years of age.

Jeanne was born on February 2, 1945 on an Army Air Force base in Alberta, Canada--a few months before the end of World War

II. After the war, her father John Mitchell, and mother Helen May Ostrander Mitchell moved the family to Central California. By this time her mother had remarried so Jeanne, her brother John and her sisters Jeanette and Janice grew up on the Tosto dairy ranch in Crows Landing.

Jeanne attended Orestimba High School where she was a song leader and participated in many school activities. She was chosen “Miss Gustine” in 1960. The judges were somewhat chagrined when they discovered she was only fifteen years old-but she still got to keep the trophy!

While taking courses at Modesto Jr. College she worked for an insurance company and Dr. Herman in Turlock where she honed her office management skills.

Always interested in new challenges, she became the executive secretary for the Theatre Arts Department at Stanislaus State University. Along with managing the department’s many activities she helped her future husband Terry Burns design and direct theatrical productions performed by the drama students.

Jeanne and Terry re-located to Los Angeles where Terry pursued an acting career and Jeanne went to work for the music industry. She was highly regarded as executive secretary in sales for Pickwick Records, Motown records, and Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss of A&M records. In 1995 Jeanne suffered a badly broken shoulder which put an end to her office management career. Jeanne and her husband re-located to Mariposa where Terry had taken a position at the middle school.

Now retired, Jeanne was back in the country. She helped her husband design and direct plays for the middle school kids. She enjoyed raising West Highland Terriers and researching family genealogy.

She will be interred at Hill’s Ferry Cemetery next to the rest of her family. Jeanne was preceded in death by: her parents, brother John Mitchell, sisters Jeanette Carey and Janice Finney, and nephews “Stac” Carey and Tim Mitchell. She is survived by her husband Terry and niece Yvonne Petroni (John)