Born on March 28, 1919, in Calcutta, India, Jean Wilkinson devoted much of her life to the education of children overseas.
The Church was to play a pivotal role in shaping her life from the day she was born to George and Agnes Ewan.
Her father
was a professor of philosophy at the Scottish Churches College in Calcutta, and her mother was a teacher. The couple, who married in India in 1915, had three daughters.
Mrs Ewan brought the family back to Edinburgh in 1928, following her husband's death from typhoid.
Life was not easy, and through the help of friends and the Church, the family first made home in Forbes Road, Bruntsfield and later in Arden Street, Marchmont.
Jean was educated at George Watson's Ladies College and went on to study maths at Edinburgh University. She then trained as a teacher at Moray House.
Opportunities were opening up for teacher training in Kenya and she was appointed by the Woman's Foreign Missions Committee of the Church of Scotland to go and work there.
Before she went, she made a trip to Iona for prospective candidates for service overseas. On the train she met a young doctor, Jack Wilkinson, who was also going to work in Kenya and would later become her husband and lifelong companion.
She sailed out to Kenya in 1946 with her bicycle in a specially-made wooden box, and a pith helmet which was soon discarded.
Jean began teacher training at Tumutumu and was the first new recruit to arrive since the end of the Second World War. She found her bicycle invaluable for visiting trainee teachers in rural schools.
In 1947 she became the first headmistress of what is now known as the Alliance Girls' High School in Kikuyu, Kenya, where she found deep satisfaction in enabling young African women to be taught for the first time.
Meanwhile, Jack had been posted by the Church to the province of Tumutumu before being transferred to Kikuyu.
The couple married in January 1949, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro on honeymoon.
In November their first child, Patricia, was born. Jack was relief doctor to the three hospitals of Tumutumu, Kikuyu and Chogoria, and from 1949 to 1961 Jean had to make a new home every year, coping with the challenges of running a house and bringing up a family in rural Africa, far from city shops. Alison was born next in Tumutumu and finally Ewan was born when they were on leave in Edinburgh.
In 1975 they returned to Edinburgh and settled in Craigleith. For Jean the attraction of the house was the large garden with its view of the hills, which she loved.
Daughter Patricia said: "Although she was quiet, she was not shy. She knew her own mind and was not afraid to express it. Kind, helpful and supportive, when she smiled her face lit up, a characteristic twinkle in her eyes. That's how we remember her."
She died peacefully at her home, surrounded by her family, on May 8.
She is survived by her husband the Rev Dr Jack Wilkinson, daughters Patricia and Alison, son Ewan, her grandchildren and sisters Alison and Margaret.
The full article contains 548 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
