Jill Susan King

Jill Susan (Featherstone) King, 76, of Sarasota, Florida, went home to be with the Lord on Friday morning, August 24, 2024. She was born on February 9, 1948, in Chicago, Illinois, to James Robson Featherstone and Jean (Curtis) Featherstone, and she was their second of three children. As the daughter of an immigrant father from England, she grew up with many traditional English customs taught to her by both her mother and father. Her father being a big band leader in Chicago in the 1930s–1940s, Jill was involved in the entertainment world as a child model. She graduated from Main South High School in Park Ridge in 1966, and in the late 1960s worked with the Congress On Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.). For most of her career, Jill was a professional interior designer, working predominantly in the San Francisco Bay area of California, as well as in Dayton, Ohio, and in Sarasota. Throughout her career, she also regularly wrote articles on interior design for the local newspapers where she lived. She was known for her outgoing personality, self-sacrificial spirit, and steadfast perseverance through many trials throughout her life, including her contraction of polio when she was a child, resulting in her having a bad back all of her life. She was a tremendous cook, pianist, painter (with watercolor), and entrepreneur. Whenever the need arose, she would start a business to help make ends meet for her family. In whatever situation she was, she would always be the first one to serve and help, to make someone feel welcome, and to defend and stand up for the defenseless and hurting. Jill was the mother of three children, with her former husband Roy Ned Parsons (1924–1992), and the loving grandmother of six grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her younger brother and sister-in-law, John and Linda Featherstone. Having recently been widowed by her husband of thirty-five years, Robert Lee King, she leaves behind her older sister Joyce Nash (Ron), children Burk Hiram Parsons (Amber), Margaret Blair Garner (Andrew), and Callie Brooke Parsons (Corey), and grandchildren Claire, Elizabeth, and Everett Parsons and Maggie, Jane, and Andrew “Drew” Garner, as well as her loving nephew, Chris Nash, and niece, Abagail (Featherstone) King. There will be a memorial service on August 27th 2024 at Bethel Mennonite Church in Sarasota at 11:30am. Memories and condolences may be left for the family at www.MFHcares.com.

Jill Susan King

February 9, 1948 - August 24, 2024