Gerri LeCrone’s decision to start a jewelry business, after being a homemaker for the better part of 20 years, wasn’t as out-of-the-blue as it might seem. Creativity was part of Mrs. LeCrone’s DNA, and it was after her youngest child left home, she decided to explore her artistic side again.
“She’d put it on hold while she was raising the kids,” said Kerry Kip LeCrone Sr., her husband of almost 40 years. “And she chose jewelry making after trying a few different things. In the jewelry, she found a way to create art, within art.”
Using beads from antique lamps, semi-precious stones and other materials, Mrs. LeCrone created one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry for customers all over the world. A generally shy woman, Mrs. LeCrone used the Internet to meet people and show off her crafts.
Mrs. LeCrone worked on her jewelry until she fell at home in March one day. That fall led to a diagnosis of lung cancer, which had already spread to her brain, her husband said.
“On her table was a piece that was all laid out, like she was just about to put it on a wire,” said her daughter, Robin LeCrone-Scott of Dallas, Texas. “It was then that I thought about how she really did work on her art up to the very end. She was probably working on it just before she fell.”
Gerri Kay LeCrone, of Hickory Flat, died Friday from complications associated with cancer, at North Fulton Regional Hospital. She was 69. A funeral service has been planned for 11 a.m. Tuesday at Northside Chapel Funeral Directors, which is also in charge of arrangements.
Mrs. LeCrone came from a long line of artists, her husband said. Her talent earned her a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute, but her family encouraged her to stay with them in Oklahoma City, where she was reared. She married when she was 21, and that union produced a daughter, but they divorced a year later. In 1970, six years later, she met Mr. LeCrone and in 1972 they married. Three years later, the couple had a son, and Mrs. LeCrone put all of her energy into raising her children.
Mrs. LeCrone’s shy nature didn’t bode well for her art, until she discovered the Internet, said Kerry Kip LeCrone, Jr., her son who lives in Austin, Texas.
“I left home and then came back to this woman who was computer savvy, a power-seller on eBay and could write HTML code,” Kip LeCrone said with a laugh. “And the Internet was where she was comfortable interacting with customers.”
Mrs. LeCrone loved a good conversation, but always preferred a small group to a room full of people, her husband said. She would routinely fall into lengthy conversations with her suppliers and customers about one thing or another. In a blog about his wife, Mr. LeCrone recounts one of his favorite stories about his wife’s love of conversation.
“I came home from work and heard her on the phone talking about purses and where great deals were,” he wrote. “She talked with someone for about 20 minutes. I was getting hungry, so I finally asked ‘Who are you talking to?’ She told me it was the lady at Papa Johns that took pizza orders! How many folks didn’t eat that night?”
Mr. LeCrone said that conversation is also a good example of his wife’s willingness to give of herself.
“She was very generous, ever with strangers,” Kerry LeCrone said. “She would rather give to a stranger than keep for herself. She wanted to see people happy.”
In addition to her husband, son and daughter, Mrs. LeCrone is survived by four grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
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