Ralph Olin Jackson, Jr.

Judge Ralph Olin Jackson, Jr., of Rockmart, GA, passed away on Sunday, December 11, 2011, following a brief illness at Floyd Medical Center in Rome, GA. He was 88.


Mr. Jackson was born in Rockmart on December 8, 1923, the son of the late Ralph Olin Jackson, Sr. and Isabelle Neel Jackson, former notables of Rockmart.


Mr. Jackson attended the public schools in Rockmart, and was a graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta in 1945, where he earned a Bachelor Degree; and the John Marshall School of Law in Atlanta, where he earned a juris doctorate law degree. In 1947, while attending law school at the University of Georgia, he and three other individuals co-founded the University?s chapter of Chi Psi Fraternity.


Mr. Jackson was an officer in the United States Navy in the South Pacific during World War II; a dairyman in Rockmart from 1951 to 1969; an official with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Atlanta from 1968 to the early 1990s; and an appointee to the bench as a magistrate court judge in Forsyth County in the early 1990s being elected and re-elected as Chief Magistrate in that county throughout the remainder of the decade of the 1990s.


From 1975 through the late 1990s, Mr. Jackson attended Deer Creek Shores Presbyterian Church where he served as a lay minister. During this time he founded a home for battered women in Forsyth.


Following retirement from the judicial bench in the late 1990s, Mr. Jackson and wife Elizabeth returned to Rockmart to live, joining the Rockmart Presbyterian Church.


Mr. Jackson was married in 1948 to Marilyn Jordan Jackson, daughter of the late Guy Wilfred Jordan and the late Essie Hudgins Jordan all of Rockmart; and to Elizabeth Smothers Marcum of Atlanta in 1969. Prior to moving to Atlanta in 1969, Mr. Jackson was active in civic affairs in Rockmart and a member of the Rockmart Rotary Club.


Mr. Jackson was preceded in death by his parents, his sister Julia Jackson Aldred, and by his son, Guy Jordan Jackson, all of Rockmart; by his niece Helen Aldred; and by his grandson, Christopher Oettinger of Seattle, Washington. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; his sister Mary Ann Bennett of Rockmart; his four children by a previous marriage ? Patricia Jackson Hughes and husband James Hughes, David Anderson Jackson and wife Judith McGinnis Jackson, all of Rockmart, Ralph Olin Jackson III and wife Judy Grizzle Jackson of Roswell, and Mary Jackson Oettinger of Friday Harbor, Washington; by step-children Sharon Marcum Bledsoe and husband Denny of Douglasville, Vicki Marcum Rowe of Lewisville, Texas and Jon K. Marcum and wife Clare of Woodstock, Georgia; as well as by numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews.


A memorial service for Mr. Jackson will be held at the Rockmart Presbyterian Church on Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. with the Rev. Maryellen Hittel officiating. The family will receive visitors following the service. In lieu of flowers memorial gifts may be made to the Rockmart Presbyterian Church.


The Alvis Miller & Son Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements for Mr. Ralph Olin Jackson, Jr.