Jackie (Jack) Lee Newby was born September 18, 1934 in Lincoln County, Oklahoma on a sharecropper’s farm. He was one of 14 children born to Harry and Vesta (Birkes) Newby.
With his family he travelled back and forth to Arizona from Oklahoma during the depression. He graduated from Chandler High School in May 1954. Two weeks prior to graduation he married the love of his life, Dorotha Dotson. They were married for 66 years.
Jack was a steelworker at Marathon Steel in Tempe, Arizona for 27 years only leaving because the steel mill was closing. After working at the steel mill Jack worked as a mechanic at Honeywell/Allied Signal where he never missed a day of work.
He was a hard worker and did his best to provide for his family, often working long hours to let his wife stay at home with his children.
Although Jack was a quiet man, he had strong opinions that he was never afraid to voice and he would strongly try to convince you to change your opinion.
Although he just had a high school education, he loved to read and was knowledgeable about various subjects and often quizzed his children at the dinner table. A poem that he had memorized in high school and tried to get his children to learn was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Arrow and The Song”.
Jack passed into the next new adventure on October 11th, 2020. He is survived by his wife Dorotha, his children, Carolyn Henley (Mel), Mary Schmitt (Joe), Travis Newby, Virginia Bartlett, Dennis Newby (Lorinda), Sherry Hegan (Walt) and Tracy Newby (Christine), and he is also survived by his 17 grandchildren, 18 great grandchildren and 4 great great grandchildren, along with his brothers, Joe and Robert Newby. He was preceded in death by his son Curtis, his parents Harry and Vesta (Birkes) Newby and 11 of his siblings.