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Feb. 19, 1943 – Sept. 4, 2022

With almost 80 years of life behind her, Casey (ne Madeline Cassyl Jensen) took a courageous step into the unknown at 4:26 in the morning on September 4 at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Lafayette, Louisiana.

She was born on Feb 19, 1943, in Angola, Louisiana, where her grandfather was the chief engineer of the prison sugar refinery, to her parents Barbara and John Jensen.

She leaves behind her daughter, Halane (Scott Partee) Hughes; her son, Howard Hughes and his fiancé Stacie Adams; two brothers, John (Zahn) Jensen and Paul (Lucy) Jensen, as well as her sisters, Erica (Mike Holmes) Jensen-Holmes and Alexis Kelly Bond, and four grandchildren, Maple Hughes and Adele Partee, daughters of Halane (Scott Partee) Hughes and Emily and Mallori, daughters of Howard Hughes. Also leaving her, stepmother Ann Jensen.

Her brother, Dax preceded her into the great mystery, as did her two parents.

Casey spent a good part of her childhood overseas with her family, in Beirut, Spain, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Orleans, France, where her views were broadened and influenced by the expatriot intelligencia. She graduated from the US Army High School in Orleans in 1960 and started College at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge later that year.

In 1964 she married Howard Hampton Hughes, the year they both graduated from LSU, after which they both enrolled in the graduate program for Psychology at the University of Georgia in Athens. While in Athens, their two children Howard and Halane were born.

Receiving her Ph.D. in Psychology, Casey, began teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University and later moved to Annapolis, Maryland becoming a School Psychologist for Prince George County, Maryland. She earned and obtained a license to practice Clinical Psychology and saw patients at her office in downtown Annapolis.

Throughout her life and career, she passionately worked to further women’s rights, including working to form the Maryland branch of the National Organization for Women and as a national lobbyist for N.O.W. She was deeply involved in electoral politics and ran unsuccessfully for Maryland House and Senate and US House of Representatives.

Was it romance, a desire for adventure and change, or a desire to return to her southern roots which led Casey to leave her friends and associates behind in Annapolis? Perhaps it was all of those.

In 1997, she moved to Natchez, Mississippi and continued to live there until several months before her death. She loved Natchez and the many people who opened their hearts and homes to her. She was proud to be accepted as a “Natchezian.”

She worked at the Natchez Public Library part-time for 20 years while running her business management consultancy, helping local businesses.

She remained dedicated to civil involvement as a Democrat, always up to date with the latest issues and attending meetings. She served as an official Mississippi blogger at the historic Democratic National Convention in 2008.

Through the years she bought and sold many houses and buildings and an interesting assortment of automobiles. She was also a self-taught artist and put her whole heart into painting the rooms of her brick Victorian house in Natchez, with a different theme for every room, often working atop a tall stepladder, like Michelangelo, doing the ceilings.