Jill Ann Egner

Las Cruces lost a dear friend June 13, 2023 with the passing of Jill Ann Egner, 83. A devout Catholic, she joins her husband Fred who preceded her in 2001.

The two of them built a wonderful life that began in England, Jill's home country. He was an American, there, working. She worked at a bank. They met at a party and quickly fell in love. They would marry soon after and move to America in 1959. She was 19.

In the beginning, they bounced to and from different cities to accommodate Fred's employment but eventually landed in what became their longtime home - Las Cruces, New Mexico. What a sight Jill must have been for desert dwellers - a London sophisticate with delicate style and a penchant for fashion. And that beautiful accent.

She quickly found her klatch -worthy fellow Brits or colleagues from her decades long career as a realtor. If it wasn't afternoon tea, it was a gathering at a popular watering hole. She hung with the very best of them. These would be relationships she carried her whole life.

Jill chose her clothes carefully, always aware of the event to which they were worn. When her beloved daughters came along - Andrea, Stephanie and Kirstie - she forewent the ease of off-the-shelf outfits and instead made their clothes to ensure proper style and fit. Her impeccable taste belied her own beginnings.

Jill was born June, 1940 in the Clapham district of southwest London to lower middle-class parents Lillian and William Howlett. World War II was raging throughout Europe. Before Jill was a month old, Hitler launched the Battle of Britain. Bombs exploded all around them. One house destroyed another left standing; one neighborhood destroyed the next over left standing. Her dad went out as a member of the Home Guard to assess damages and help with survivors. The battle ended three months later with Britain still in tact. But bombing began again in early 1944. Jill was three years old by then.

In her final weeks alive, Jill remembered vividly the air raid sirens and the relentless explosions from her youth. Massive fires burned relentlessly, she remembered. Fear of fire would stay with her for the rest of her life, her daughters said. It was not uncommon for Jill to check, double check and check again the stove in her home to make sure everything had been turned off.

But these foibles wouldn't define her life, nor did she allow them to define her family's. Her dad and mom made sure of that, she said. Despite the destruction all around them, Lillian and William kept Jill safe and attempted to create a playful normalcy they believed all children should have. Nazi's be damned. (Jill loved to swear when it was called for).

Her own children describe their mother as a disciplinarian - in concept. Kirstie lovingly remembers how angry she would get at one or all of her girls and instantly ground them.

"Then she would realize that when we were grounded, that meant she was grounded too, because she had to watch us," Kirstie laughed. "That meant she couldn't socialize. The grounding usually lasted a couple of hours."

Regardless of how one defines discipline and structure, Jill had her way. And it worked - we think. Attend any Egner gathering and the cast of characters is mind numbing - kids, grandkids, in-laws everywhere. Words and instructions are dispatched in every direction with no discernible target. In the middle of it all a demure Jill with a clever, smirky smile holding court.

And Jill wanted to speak to everyone at family functions. If one had pleasure to spend time with her in her later years, it was easy to lean in, if not to capture her words then to savor the British accent presented in the most elegant way. She was petite like a princess. Her fragile frame was frequently wrapped in a shawl or big scarf, thick or thin

depending upon the season. Her cherry blonde hair framed porcelain skin. She had a decorum even in her later years. Class 2.0.

But her final lesson will be remembered as maybe her bravest.

After the cancer diagnosis came, family discussions turned to treatment. At her age, which would be the best? What would her cardiologist say? How painful would it be? Less than two years earlier, Jill had said that she would want to fight to live. But something changed.

In her understated way as she became more weak, Jill told her daughters that she didn't want treatment. "I have lived an incredible life," she told her girls. "I want to be home." And she was.

Jill is survived by her three daughters: Andrea (James) Hanslin and children Parker, Grey, Hannah (Jace), Jordan, and seven grandchildren; Stephanie (Juan) Felix and children Fabian, Julian, Estevan, Robert (Maria) Anthony and 4 grandchildren; Kirstie (Jim) Robles and son Jett. Also surviving her is sister Janet (Es) Webster and brother Paul Howlett and numerous nieces and nephews and their families in England.

She is preceded in death by her husband Fredrick Vincent Egner, her mother and father and numerous aunties and uncles, whom she loved dearly.

A memorial service is scheduled for Thursday, June 22, 2023, in the Getz Funeral Home Chapel at 10:30AM. A memorial Mass will follow on Friday, June 23, 2023, at 10:00AM, at Holy Cross Catholic Church with Msgr. John Anderson officiating.

Service Details.
Service When
Thursday, June 22, 2023 10:30am
Location
Getz Funeral Home Chapel
Address
1410 E. Bowman Ave.
Las Cruces, NM 88001