Jean Marie Calligan-Salmons

Jean Marie Calligan-Salmons, passed away on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 at St. Luke’s Hospital, ending her fight with Pulmonary Sarcoidosis and complications related to COVID.  She fought mightily.  Visitation will be Tuesday, January 12^th at 1pm with family present and Services at 2pm at Meyer Brothers Colonial Chapel on Stone Park Boulevard in Sioux City.  The service will be live streamed at https://youtu.be/FP-UglD5Uzs. Masks are required.  Online condolences may be sent to www.meyerbroschapels.com.

Jean was born to Marie (Osipowicz) Calligan and Vincent Calligan in Sioux City, Iowa on August 30^th, 1949.  She always wished she had been born one year later so that she would have sounded a little younger.  She was a force on earth.  She attended Heelan High School until begging her father to let her go to East High.  He acquiesced and Jean graduated there and went on to the University of Denver.  She received her Associate degree in Computer Technology from Western Iowa Tech, her Bachelor’s from Morningside College and her MBA from the University of South Dakota.  When asked what Jean did for a living she replied - Diversified. 

Jean ran the family restaurant, started by her parents in 1955, The Tastee Inn and Out on Gordon Drive in Sioux City.  She ended up running it longer than her parents had. Her work and legacy at the Tastee has appeared in national publications and won many regional awards. But, her very first career was in Social Work.  The skills she developed there - supporting and loving and guiding her staff (sternly when needed) -  she kept in every profession she would go on to.  She was one of only a tiny handful of women who were among the first computer programmers until she was promoted to Rate Analyst at MidAmerican Energy.  She also built a gorgeous Queen Anne Victorian home with the love of her life, Dr. Ivan K. Salmons.  They dreamed about the impossible and then would make it anyway.  Ike and Jean- an almost 40-year love affair. 

Jean was a winter athlete.  She grew up with her two sisters Patricia and Debra (both previously deceased) in Sioux City.  Jean was a competitive ice-skater and spent both early morning and late afternoon hours practicing. She earned trophies in tournaments nationally.  She loved to ski in Colorado and even got to ski in Austria once with Ike.  She was said to solve all the worlds’ problems on fitness walks with her girlfriends.  She was a gifted thinker and problem-solver. 

Jean was a loving mother to her only child, her daughter Joye Heather (Cook) Levy, with her first husband Allen Cook.  Jean spent Joye’s childhood on Alice St in Morningside- just the two of them- also going on those long fitness walks, traveling and skiing.  Joye, along with her husband Scott and their children Gabriel and Ellie live in Colorado and sojourn home to the “Birthday cake house” in Sioux City for summers and holidays where they play with Ike’s son Brent and wife Tracy and their children Chloe and Tyler. 

Jean lived life on her own terms.  She managed and built and created and dreamed exactly what she wanted.  There’s nothing she enjoyed more than cleaning and organizing, and then cleaning and organizing some more.  She loved and cared for her mother Marie at the end of her life.  She led a full dedicated civic life volunteering on the Sioux City Planning and Zoning Commission where she was also named Chair.  She and Ike won restoration awards for the work on their old house. 

Jean loved to laugh and even in the most difficult times and struggles would manage to bring her sense of humor into a moment of problem-solving.  She was loved by so many throughout her full but far too brief life.  She will be very missed.

Donations in Jean's memory may be made to the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research:  https://www.stopsarcoidosis.org/donate/