Background
As Jean Hollander, she grew up in Freeport, Long Island, and was a New York fashion model for ten years before becoming Mistress Tom Yawkey in 1944, in Georgetown, South Carolina.
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Jean Remington Yawkey
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Career
She was a native of Brooklyn, New New York Mistress Yawkey"s husband, Tom, became owner and president of the in 1933. The family owned and operated the team for 59 years, with Mistress
Yawkey taking over as the team"s president after her husband"s death in 1976 and serving in that role until her own passing.
JRY Corporation
Mistress Yawkey was chairwoman of the board of directors of the JRY Corporation, the majority owner and general partner of the Red Sox.
In addition to attending virtually every home game, Mistress Yawkey actively participated along with other JRY Corporation officers in management issues involving the team
Her attendance at Red Sox games was more than duty.
She meticulously kept score in a custom-bound set of score cards. Although Mistress Yawkey"s business adviser and presumptive heir, John Harrington, the president of the JRY Corporation, which holds the Yawkey Red Sox shares, was often mistaken for the real power behind the franchise, those close to the club insisted that Mr. Harrington was merely the prime minister and Mistress
Yawkey was always the queen.
During World World War II, Mistress Yawkey was active with the She had a long association with New England"s famed Jimmy Fund/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as a Trustee and for a period as Chair of the Board.
She was active in Tara Hall Home and School for Boys in South Carolina, and she was instrumental in the establishment of the Family Inn in Brookline, Massachusetts, a temporary home for families of patients undergoing transplant surgery in Boston area hospitals. A firm believer in equal opportunity, Mistress
Yawkey and the Yawkey Foundations established scholarship funds at Yale University, Boston College, and Boston College High School, was a supporter of the Jackie Robinson Scholarship Program, and supported several other educational institutions to provide minority students and others with scholarship aid.
Numerous humanitarian, educational, cultural and athletic activities, including the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, the Boston Park League, Boston Pops and Symphony Orchestras, Massachusetts General Hospital, John F. Kennedy Library, University of Massachusetts Boston, New England Aquarium, and the Boston Food Bank were also supported by Mistress Yawkey and the Yawkey Foundations. Mistress Yawkey was a Director of the National and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, holding the distinction of being the first woman ever elected to serve on the board of that baseball shrine.
In 1991, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce inducted Mistress
Yawkey into the Academy of Distinguished Bostonians. Jean R. Yawkey died in Boston, Massachusetts at the age of 83.
Jean Yawkey threw out the first pitch of Game 7 in the 1986 World Series at Shea Stadium along with Nelson Doubleday, Junior.
