Joan G. "Jet" Price (1946 - 2019)

MONMOUTH - Joan "Jet" G. Price died at her home in Monmouth on June 13, 2019. She was born at the Boston Lying-In Hospital in 1946, the first child of Thelma Alpert Price and Henry S. Price. She grew up in Newton, Mass., and was educated in the local schools. She graduated from Connecticut College in 1968 with a degree in fine arts and attended The Museum School before earning a master's degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. 

Jet lived on a kibbutz in Israel for two years where she worked and studied Hebrew. While in art school and living in Jamaica Plain, she met a law student, Joseph "Joe" M. O'Donnell, and they married in 1975. As a young girl, she went to summer camps in Maine and fell in love with the state, so she needed little persuasion to settle there. The couple lived in Purgatory Village and restored a house there before moving two miles up the road to Monmouth to a brand new home that Jet had a large part in designing and building, along with establishing the many gardens on the property. 

Her elder son, John Ezechiel O'Donnell, was born in 1980, and her second son, Jacob Eamon O'Donnell, was born in 1983. Jet stayed with her sons at home where they benefited from her playful attention, fierce originality, and wit. She thrived as a mother and filled the house with her artistic creations and iconoclastic spirit while making sure her pantry was always copiously stocked. 

Jet served as a teacher in the Hebrew School at the Temple Beth El for many years. As a cheap date with her husband after hours at the Registry of Deeds, she learned to search real estate title and later worked abstracting with Attorney Paul Mills of Farmington and with Goodspeed & O'Donnell. 

In 2000, Jet became the art teacher at the Henry L. Cottrell School in Monmouth. She taught for over fifteen years. Every Monmouth student from the era still has a pinch pot or ash tray made within her massive spring project that she labored to complete before the end of each school year. 

Jet's prolific desire to create art lead her across many formats. She was adept at pastels, and made beautiful landscapes, but her main focus was pottery which she crafted in her home studio. She produced an impressive collection of mugs, bowls and vases. Her pottery art went through various phases, but her last was majolica, which she elaborately hand decorated with illustrations that often reflected her sly humor. 

A family aunt noted that Jet had golden hands, and indeed she knit, drew, sewed, wove, cooked, quilted and gardened. She traveled extensively, frequently to art museums. She enjoyed keeping active and loved badminton, running, walking, cross-country skiing, and swimming.

She leaves her husband; sons, John Ezechiel O'Donnell (Leah Kolenda O'Donnell) of Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and Jacob E. O'Donnell (Alexa Baz) of Brooklyn, N.Y.; grandchildren Ada, Ezra, and Sylvia, all of Yorktown Heights, N.Y.; her brother, William A. Price, of Franklin, Mass.; her sister-in-law, Judy Brooks (Steve O'Donnell) of Monmouth; extended family and countless friends. 

Jet will have a family burial and then there will be a memorial service at East Monmouth Methodist Church, 573 Route 135 in Monmouth on June 21, at 3 p.m. 

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her memory to

Kennebec Land Trust

P.O. Box 261

Winthrop, ME 04364

Temple Beth El

P.O. Box 871

Augusta, ME 04332

Doctors Without Borders USA

P.O. Box 5030

Hagertown, MD 21741

or a charity of choice.