Jeanne

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In her final hours, Jeanne Previte looked up at her four children, who were gathered bedside.

“Love each other,” she said softly.

It’s a message they will cherish. And one so many of us could use right now.

Jeanne, who died peacefully at her home in Ada, Ohio on November 7th, spent nearly 81 years on this earth never truly appreciating how far her love spread.

It spread, quite often, through food.

Jeanne grew up in a Lebanese household in Detroit. That’s where she met her husband, Peter Previte Sr., who grew up in an Italian family in New Jersey.

They raised four children together and built a family whose love language is to make space for you at their dinner table. It’s a place typically over-crowded with relatives, neighbors and plates of tabbouleh or pasta — more likely, both.

Jeanne and Peter, married for 51 years, bonded over faith, family, food and a whole lot of laughter.

“I really feel that God brought the two of us together,” Peter said.

Jeanne was an educator, teaching language arts and music at St. Rose Catholic School and serving as a substitute teacher at St. Gerard Catholic School, both in Lima, OH.

She was also an expert chef with culinary skills on par with her favorite stars on the Food Network. She started her own catering business out of the family’s kitchen. She later opened Jeanne’s Kitchen, a beloved restaurant and gathering space in Bluffton.

She saw cooking as an ambassadorship of sorts, spreading the beauty of Lebanese culture and passing respect for it to her children and everyone else.

Fighting for a lifelong dream and opening a restaurant at age 60 was a bold move. But cooking — for her family, for church events and later at her business in Bluffton — was a way to gather people, to build community and connection. A crowded dinner table where people were eating and chatting and swapping stories was her emotional fuel.

Jeanne’s daughter, Rose, a restaurateur and cookbook author, says her mom inspired her success as a woman breaking through in the male-dominated chef world. Jeanne always laughed away the idea that she was Rose’s role model. But she was.

Jeanne had an infectious laugh, but was more often a quiet and devoted listener who spread endless love to the people closest to her. Love was never transactional to her. It was never delivered with judgment or expectation.

Her oldest son, Albert, spoke of her being the only person he’d think to call in life’s toughest moments. She didn’t offer long platitudes of advice — she offered reassurance, comfort and a reminder that if everyone else abandoned someone she loved, she’d still be there.

In that dying wish to her children was a message to make that be her legacy.

Jeanne Michele Geha was born January 4, 1946 in Akron, Ohio before moving to Detroit. She was always a proud Michigander, regardless of being born in Ohio and living in Ohio most of her adult life. She never, ever, would cheer for Ohio State.

Jeanne graduated from Cooley High School in Detroit in1963 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wayne State University in Detroit in 1970.

In 1975, she married Peter and moved with him to Ada, where he taught pharmacy law at Ohio Northern University.

In addition to her teaching, Jeanne worked with Peter and other friends to open County Line Christian School outside Ada, providing a faith based curriculum for their children.

Her Bluffton restaurant, Jeanne’s Kitchen, opened in 2007. She ran it proudly for a decade.

Jeanne was also a chronic volunteer, always lending her time to her church and numerous charity organizations that she also financially supported. She was a proud parishioner at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Ada and St. Gerard in Lima.

Jeanne is survived by her husband, Peter Sr.; her four children, Rose, Albert, Peter Jr. and Joseph, and their spouses, David Greene, Maggie Previte, Rebecca Previte and Kristen Kagei; her sisters, Janice Pavach, Joan Charron and Jennifer Nardecchia and her brother, Victor Geha; and her three grandchildren, Peter III, Albert John (Jack) and Henry Previte.

There will be a celebration of life to remember Jeanne on January 9th at St. Gerard Church at 240 West Robb Ave. in Lima, Ohio.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Covenant House, an organization Jeanne supported because she believed in their mission to protect women and girls and children and provide resources to help them find housing, stability and love.