Jayne Blanton Paksoy, age 94, died peacefully in her sleep Tuesday, April 15, 2020. She was the daughter of the late Fred W. and Maude Sikes Blanton. Jayne was born in 1925 in Tryon, N.C and moved with her family to Shelby when she was six.

After graduating from Shelby High School, Jayne spent two years at Queens College in Charlotte and two years at Columbia University in New York City, where she majored in Creative Writing and studied under famous writers such as Paul Gallico and Budd Shulburg.

In the summer of 1947, she was one of six other students selected by the Unitarian Service Committee to serve as a counselor in a Belgium camp (with an equal number of Belgium counselors), to help young children who had been deprived of healthy nutrition during the war. The USC provided all food and supplies and the campers lived in a beautiful Chateau near Namur for the summer. Being among the first students allowed in Europe after the war, they sailed on a converted troop ship which took 10 days to cross the Atlantic, and returned in October, 1947, on the same ship.

It was while she was a student at Columbia that she met the love of her life, Ali Paksoy, a Turkish student from Stanford University who came to the States to complete his education and due to the war, could not return to Turkey until it was safe.

Against both families' strong objections, they married November, 1947, in Bakersfield, California. After the birth of their first son, Ali Paksoy, Jr., they resided in Shelby, N.C., and in 1952, they lived for two years in Turkey to be close to Ali's family. And while there, Ali served in the Turkish Army (required of all Turkish men). They then returned to the USA and resided in Shelby. Subsequently, their other three children, Nicole, John and Scott, were born.

After 44 years of marriage, Ali died in 1991.

Seven years later while traveling, she met Joe DeVita from Connecticut, a retired academic living in Florida, and they were married in 1998. They cruised and danced their way through 14 years of marriage before Joe, too, passed away.

Jayne was a philanthropist and believed that charity began at home. Many local charities benefited from her gifts; among them the YMCA and Cleveland Community College, where she established the Paksoy Technology Center in honor of Ali, and the Dr. Joseph C. DeVita classroom in honor of Joe.

She was a member of a Shelby bridge club that met every week for more than 50 years. These women grew up together and celebrated each other's' marriages and the births of their children and grandchildren. They were good influences on their children, many of whom grew up to live and work in Shelby. Through her marriage and by hosting her Turkish in-laws, nieces and nephews in Shelby over the years, she introduced many people to a country that is not always well-known.

She was interested in people and adored her fellow man, and because of that, she made friends wherever she went - airport lounges, cruise ship dances (where she met Joe), her children's schools, her nephew's broker. She was a stickler for grammar. It didn't matter if you were hers or not - if you made a grammatical error, family members would hold their breaths and wait for the correction. She believed in education above all.

Not much intimated Jayne. She purchased an iPad at age 88 and connected to her family and friends through social media, texts and emails on her iPad until the day she died. She was adventurous and inquisitive, a world traveler who visited her family in Turkey often and arranged for her children to keep those family connections. She traveled elsewhere, with friends and family, making new friends she would email when she returned home.

Although she roamed wide and often, Jayne loved Shelby. She lived in Florida part of the year when she and Joe married, but she always came back to Shelby. "This is where I belong," she said often. She grew up in Shelby and vacationed in Myrtle Beach, and that's where she raised her family and vacationed with them.

In addition to her parents, Jayne is predeceased by her two sisters and their husbands who also lived in Shelby, creating a close relationship that endures to this day among their 12 children: Mary Blanton and Paul Vogel and Maude Sikes Blanton and Dr. James Burrus; her grandson, Ali-John and granddaughter, Amy Jayne. She is survived by her children Ali Jr. (Peggy), Niki (Steven Irish), John (Amy) and Scott (Sydney) Paksoy; her grandchildren Kerry Paksoy (Yumi), Allison Paksoy Hughes (Thomas), Kay Paksoy Castillo (Ian), Kelli, Cameron, Kinslee and Ryan Paksoy; great-grandchildren Makana Castillo and Logan and Ali Paksoy; former daughter-in-law, Lauren Luckadoo; and her dear and special bonus family Joe DeVita Jr.; Nick and Stacey DeVita and twin grandsons Timothy and Nicky; and Vogel, Burrus and Paksoy nieces and nephews.

Private graveside will be held at Sunset Cemetery.

Memorials can be made to: Gardner Webb University c/o Ralph Andrews Scholarship, PO Box 997, Boiling Springs NC 28017 or Hospice Cleveland County, 951 Wendover Heights Drive, Shelby NC 28150

Cecil M. Burton Funeral Home and Crematory is serving the family.

Guest Registry is available at www.cecilmburtonfuneralhome.com.