Real Family Values

Amid the sound and fury surrounding the Terri Schiavo story, it's easy for considerably less-contentious news events to get lost in the proverbial shuffle.

One such story: Dr. Georgeanna Seegar Jones, an American gynecologist who was pivotal in paving the way for the nation's first "test tube" baby, died on Saturday, March 26. She was 92.

In 1981, Jones and her husband, Dr. Howard Jones Jr., announced that in vitro fertilization had resulted in the birth of Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American to be conceived outside of the mother's body. In the wake of Georgeanna Jones' death, Carr told the Baltimore Sun that she had always considered the Jones to be a "second set of grandparents."

People quietly slip from this mortal coil each and every day without having achieved the sort of celebrity we typically reserve for supermodels and second-rate pop singers. Dr. Georgeanna Seegar Jones is just one of millions of unsung heroes and heroines who have left behind remarkable contributions sure to impact generations to come.

I had never heard of Dr. Jones before happening upon the Sun article, and that's a shame. While politicians of all stripes squawk like parakeets about family values -- you might have heard some particularly loud squawking as of late -- here was a woman who, along with her husband, influenced the lot of families in a way that really mattered.

Check out this Baltimore Sun story for more.