Funeral speakers: Owens spread love as much as activism
Norwich — If everyone in southeastern Connecticut loved one another like Jacqueline Owens loved family, friends, fellow activists and the countless youths she mentored, Norwich and the entire region would be a better place.
That was a major theme Friday during a two-hour funeral service for the beloved longtime leader of the “mighty, mighty” Norwich NAACP branch, as Connecticut NAACP President Scott Esdaile described the branch Owens led for nearly 31 years until her retirement in December. The funeral was held in the Jacqueline B. Owens Auditorium at Kelly Middle School in her adopted city of Norwich.
Owens, 86, died unexpectedly late Saturday or early Sunday at her home in Lebanon, hours after she had sponsored a breakfast at her church, Trinity Missionary Baptist Church in New London.
Her longtime pastor, Wade Hyslop, said he had a long happy phone conversation with Owens that afternoon. It was going so well that Hyslop, who was in the car, kept driving around the city as the conversation continued. Hyslop said he received the call at 10 a.m. Sunday from an Owens family member that she had died.
Marvelous Guerrier, who graduated from Norwich Free Academy in 2016, first met Owens — Guerrier called her "Grandmother Owens" — as a fifth-grader at the Wequonnoc School in Taftville. Guerrier didn't know the petite Owens and found herself standing beside her at a school event. Angered by proposed budget cuts she didn't understand, 10-year-old Marvelous began ranting to the stranger about losing arts and music lessons in school.
“She treated me as her equal. She didn't laugh at me,” said Guerrier, who just finished her first year at George Washington University. “She said: 'I'll see what I can do.'”
Owens had been present in Guerrier's life from that day on, as the student became active in the NAACP youth council that Owens had founded, excelled in Norwich public schools and Norwich Free Academy, was awarded the NAACP branch's Robertsine Duncan Youth Service Award and then went off to college. Owens visited her at college during one of her frequent trips to Washington, D.C.
“Today, I would like to challenge you all to love one another,” Guerrier told the audience Friday, “not that superficial love, but to really, really love one another as she loved me.”
Hyslop relayed Owens' equally deep faith in God and Jesus and said Owens' love of people was surpassed only by her love of God. She was not a church woman on Sundays alone, but throughout the week and in everything she did, Hyslop said. She spoke softly, he said, “and carried big words.”
For 35-year friend Shiela Hayes, that love extended to both their families. Hayes became Owens' traveling secretary in recent years, making flight arrangements to NAACP national conventions each year, to the NAACP Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological, Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO), to the grand opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture and to President Barack Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2008.
Hayes recalled Owens crying and dancing as she witnessed the election of the first African-American as president. She turned to Hayes and declared that she would attend the upcoming inauguration: “Shiela, make it happen.” Through assistance from U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, Owens and Hayes traveled to Washington two months later.
Courtney, who could not attend the funeral Friday, sent Owens' family a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol in Owens' honor. Courtney had given Owens his highly coveted VIP guest ticket to the African American Museum grand opening last September.
Several speakers thanked Owens' extended family — she has family in nearly every state, her sister, Minerva Dudley Cook of New London, said Friday — for “sharing” Owens with the southeastern Connecticut community and with local equal rights movements. After she retired as Norwich NAACP president, Owens helped revive the defunct chapter in Willimantic this year.
Mostly, the Lebanon resident loved and worked tirelessly in Norwich, mentoring youth, reading to children, working with police, city and school leaders to ensure equal treatment for all people and launching events that have become staples in the city's calendar. The Norwich NAACP branch will hold its 29th Juneteenth celebration from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday at Howard T. Brown Memorial Park, with a tribute to Owens planned at noon.
“We thank you, Norwich,” Cook said, “for the love and acceptance of our sister and for letting her be part of your community.”
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