Jean Hieronymi

Jean Basinger Hieronymi

1935-2018

Jean Basinger Hieronymi, a gifted singer and beloved sister, mother, and aunt, passed away on February 25, 2018. She was born November 13, 1935, in Liberal, Kansas, to Oliver and Leo Belle Basinger. The family later moved to Utah, and Jean graduated from Davis High School. While attending the University of Utah and majoring in music, she worked as a secretary of Maurice Abravanel, conductor of the Utah Symphony. One month after her college graduation, she was offered a contract to sing with the Roger Wagner Chorale in Los Angeles. She spent two years touring with that group throughout the United States and in 20 countries of Central and South America.

She then moved to New York City, where she studied singing for two years. She also met and married Victor Fraenkel, Jr., in Manhattan. He was in the Navy and was transferred to San Francisco. After his Navy duty, they lived in Concord, California, and their son, Lawrence (Larry), was born in 1963. Driving home from a Christmas visit to Utah, they had a collision with a semitrailer, and Vic and Larry died instantly. Jean was hospitalized for five months with multiple fractures.

She returned to the U in 1964 to obtain a teaching certificate and then taught fourth grade at Meadowbrook School in Bountiful, Utah, for two years. In 1967, she sang a solo with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in a recording with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. She also studied in the International Opera Studio associated with the Zurich Opera, in Switzerland, during 1967-68. Ormandy urged her to apply for a Fulbright grant to study in Europe, and she received a grant to study in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1968-69.

She received her first opera engagement at the Saarbrücken State Theater in Germany in 1969. During her five years there, she performed 21 of the greatest roles and was hired as a guest artist at many of the largest theaters in Europe, using the stage name Jeanne Fraenkel. From 1974 to 1976, she was hired principally in Bremen, Mainz, and Bayreuth, in Germany.

In 1974, she married Kenneth W. Hieronymi, in Switzerland. He was divorced with four children, and she helped raise his two younger children. He worked for the U.S. Army Missile Command, and they moved for his assignments in Kansas and Germany. After he retired, they lived in Alabama. They divorced in 2000. In her later years, she enjoyed doing genealogy work and served as her church organist. She also taught English as a second language courses for Huntsville City Schools.

Jean is survived by her brother, Donald A. Basinger (Jane), of Bountiful, Utah; four nephews and a niece; and her four stepchildren.

Funeral services will be held Monday, March 5, at 11 a.m. at Lindquist’s Bountiful Mortuary, 727 N. 400 East, in Bountiful, Utah, with a visitation prior to the services, at 10 a.m. Interment will be at the Bountiful City Cemetery.