Jane Asenith Everett Musgrave, 1923-2021
IMB Photo
Jane Asenith Everett Musgrave, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Brazil, died May 11, 2021, in Burleson, Texas. She was 97.
Musgrave was born July 9, 1923, in Lampases, Texas, to the late Leonard B. and Lula Everett. She graduated from Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth, Texas, and received the Bachelor of Arts from Texas Wesleyan College (now University) in Fort Worth.
After college, Musgrave became a fashion artist for W.C. Stripling Company, a department store in Fort Worth, where she designed the logo the store used for decades. But Jan stated when seeking missionary appointment that her job didn’t bring the satisfaction she had hoped for. When James Everett Musgrave asked her to marry him, he also asked if she would be willing to be a missionary. She had already made the decision as a teenager in a Woman’s Missionary Union organization. The couple were married on Jan. 10, 1947, and the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) appointed them missionaries to Brazil in 1948.
After language training in Campinas, Brazil, they were assigned as field missionaries for evangelism and church planting in the State of Goiás while living in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil. During several years Jan assisted her husband when he was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Goiânia, while also planting new churches throughout the state.
In 1958, Jim was assigned to coordinate church planting in the new Brazilian capital of Brasília. In 1960, the family moved to Brasília where they were a founding family of the Memorial Baptist Church of Brasília. In 1962, the family moved to Rio de Janeiro, where they continued their mission work until retiring in 1984. Jan’s work during this time was as an illustrator at the Baptist Publishing House and a teacher at the Woman’s Bible Training Institute (IBER). She was instrumental in the development of the Woman’s Missionary Union in Brazil.
The Musgraves served 34 years before retiring and returning to the United States, where Jan continued to be active in Southern Baptist work.
Jim, her husband of 63 years, died in 2010. She was also preceded in death by her sons John Barret Musgrave and Jonathan Edward Musgrave, and daughter Julia Alice Musgrave. She is survived by her son, James Everett Musgrave III (Melanie); daughter Jane Elizabeth Musgrave Armstrong; son Joseph Lee Musgrave (Judy); 12 grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and sister Alice Everett Cooper.
Donations in her memory may be made to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, IMB, 3806 Monument Avenue, Richmond, VA 23230, or online at Generosity Resource Center – IMB Generosity.