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Jeanne MacDonald

Aug. 26, 1940 - Aug. 15, 2025

On Aug. 15, 2025, with gratitude and peace, Jeanne Lyn MacDonald passed into the cosmos to live among the stars. She was born in Laurium on Aug. 26, 1940, the first of seven children, to the late Bernice and Ovid MacDonald. She lived a life dedicated to community and love.

Soon after she arrived in Grand Rapids in 1961, she found the community of Fountain Street Church and then Minister Duncan E. Littlefair. She was amazed, delighted, and deeply touched, to find other people who valued the freedom to strive to be authentically human. She was an active part of the Fountain Street Church Art Committee, great speakers, book club, and often volunteered for church events.

While there, she was part of a group of members who planned and developed the children’s school, the first “free school” in Grand Rapids.

In addition to the community of Fountain Street Church, she was active in Insight of Kalamazoo, where she found a lot of love and encouragement. Her friend Celia said she was active in helping to elect Barack Obama along with many other Democrats.

Here is a message going out to the cosmos from Jeanne’s gratitude journal:

“THANK YOU for My LIFE, MOM & DAD and ALL of the Parents going back to the beginning. Without you, there would be no me. I THANK this beautiful PLANET for the nourishment to the body and the spirit, for providing all that is needed. Thank you for all that has come before and all that will come after. Time is a many-petaled flower I dreamed. We dream ourselves into being. What we imagine comes to be. There are no limits, no edges, no boundaries except in our minds. Thank you for the ability to carry life. Thank you for my children, my grandchildren, my family of man. Thank you for everything that makes me me. Thank you for the ability to grow, to make mistakes, for the kindness of individuals who looked at me and saw me.”
Jeanne is survived by her children, Donna Munro, Constance Munro, Eric Munro, Jennifer Allen, and Nicholas David Barney MacDonald; her grandchildren, Ashleigh Munro, James Sampson, Caitlyn Allen, and Cassidy Allen: her great grandchildren, Niko Hinzmann, Loki Hinzmann, Dashiel Faust, and Freya Lee; and by her brother, Lawrence (Kay) MacDonald; and sister, Ruth MacDonald.
There will be a Celebration of Life on Nov. 9, 2025, at 3 p.m., in the Sanctuary of Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, reception to follow in the Social Hall.