Beloved mother, sister, aunt, and grandmother, Jean Rae Sykes was born on June 20, 1942 in Columbia, North Carolina. She was born to Joseph Stanley Sykes who worked as a truck driver and Hortense Sykes, a preacher and homemaker who also raised livestock and did day-work. The third of six children, Jean Rae, the first daughter, carried a heart of gold beneath an unassuming exterior and strongly valued her family, knowledge, and her spiritual life.

Her early years were spent in Columbia, North Carolina where she attended elementary and high school in Terrell County, graduating Terrell CountyHigh School in 1960. She received her Bachelors of Business Administration from Elizabeth City State University in 1968. Her earliest work experience was as a local elementary school teacher at Roper County Elementary.  

In her adulthood, she followed her older brothers north to the tri-state area, living briefly in East Orange, New Jersey with her brother James before settling on Chauncey Street in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in 1968. She worked at the Internal Revenue Service in the mid-1960s before joining the Bureau of Child Welfare in 1968 until she retired thirty years later in 1998. Jean Rae continued working after her retirement when she joined the night shift at a local home for adults with developmental disabilities. She also served as an administrator for a city agency located in lower Manhattan at 150 William Street and was amongst the New Yorkers who were caught in downtown Manhattan during the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Family was the most important part of Jean Rae’s life. After settling in Brooklyn, she was introduced to Saint-Ange Jean-Baptiste by her sister Jacqueline’s then boyfriend, Edward Phillips.  She and Saint-Ange were married on December 16, 1970. They made homes successively in Crown Heights, Park Slope and finally the Flatbush neighborhoods of Brooklyn where she lived until her death.  She was an excellent cook, known for her fried fish and baked goods such as: rolls, sweet potato pie, and rum cake. Her love for her family extended beyond her home as she cared for her siblings and extended family. She did taxes; she provided emotional and financial support; and shared a special bond with each of her siblings as evidenced by their almost daily communication at various points in their respective lives. Even before she officially took over the role of the family matriarch, family, close and extended, often looked to her for advice and support.  She was always ready to lend an ear and offer a thought.

A lifelong church-goer, Jean Rae was a spiritual woman who believed in God despite being non-denominational. She attended Saint Matthews and Saint Vincent’s Catholic church when her children were young. She visited Brooklyn Tabernacle and was a member of Emmanuel Baptist Church, joining their streaming service even when she was no longer able to attend in person. 

Jean Rae was dependable and fiercely independent. She excelled in  math and possessed a financial acumen that facilitated an excellence in budgeting, financial planning and balancing books. In addition to providing for herself and her immediate family, she always had the means to lend or to give. She was an avid reader. She frequently had the latest popular fictional offerings from her favorite authors such as Daniele Steel and James Patterson.  She was well-versed in a range of topics, especially politics both nation and local which was fueled by her daily ritual of reading the local newspapers and watching both the local and national news.  There was seldom a morning when she could not be found in her usual spot at her dining room table, turning the pages of the New York Daily News and drinking her cup of coffee (cream, no sugar!). 

On September 4, 2024, Jean Rae Sykes went home to Glory at NY Presytarian’s Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. She is survived by her 4 children: Cassandra Chavis, Randal Jean Baptiste, Ryan Jean Baptiste and Mona Jean Baptiste, her 3 grandchildren: Tyler Jean Baptiste, Kendal Jean Baptiste, and Ayah-Zayne Nelson, her two brothers Joseph Lewis Sykes and Thomas Wayne Sykes, Joseph’s wife Iva, Thomass wife Elaine, and a host of nieces, nephews as well as great nieces and nephews.