Jacqueline Malone

Jacqueline Jean Piorkowski, later known as Blaize - JP Malone, was born on July 19, 1935, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and passed away on January 21, 2026 at the home of family near Springfield Mo.

Jacqueline possessed a sharp mind and an insatiable curiosity. Her favorite childhood gift was a chemistry set, which she set up in the basement and eagerly experimented with; exploring the workings of the world. That love of discovery was at the heart of who she was.

Born the daughter of Edward and Helen Piorkowski and she had one sister, Geraldine Hogan. Jackie spent most of her childhood in Perth Amboy, New Jersey in a neighborhood filled with family. In 1948, Jacqueline’s world expanded dramatically when her nuclear family sailed to Saudi Arabia aboard the Italian ship Saturnia. This journey marked the beginning of a lifelong love of travel, culture, and most especially food. She attended high school in Beirut, Lebanon, a city she later described as the most beautiful she had ever known.

Jacqueline pursued chemical engineering at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia. While at Drexel, she met George Jay Spangler, whom she married on June 16, 1956, in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Together, they welcomed four children—Kurt Geoffrey Spangler, Lyn Barber Spangler, Beth Kender Spangler, and Jay Craig Spangler—a close group of siblings who have lived nearby and continually sought relationship and familial connection. Jackie always boasted she was a great mom. This group could be used as proof.

Professionally, Jacqueline broke barriers as a computer programmer at RCA, where she was the only woman in her role, a testament to her intelligence, resilience, and quiet trailblazing. It was at RCA she met her second husband whom she married on November 18, 1966, Charles Milton Malone. This marriage produced her fiercely independent fifth child Carrie Carson Malone Schulze.

Blaize was a pioneering spirit who evolved into a life of activism for health and for human rights. She was the first acupuncturist in the state of Missouri and one of the first practitioners of Worsley Traditional Five Element Acupuncture in the state of California. Blaize was foundational in the building of both the Santa Monica Gay and Lesbian Center and The GLO center in Springfield MO, dedicating her work to visibility, and community at a time when such spaces were urgently needed.

Blaize was a fiercely independent woman, uncompromising in her knowing that the body and food heal, and that love is for all. No matter who you were when you met Blaize, you remembered her. Her presence was unmistakable, her convictions steady, and her care expansive.

Her resonance continues through her children, and through her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, carrying forward her belief in healing, justice, and love without condition.

A Celebration of Life will be held in the spring. Please reach out to the family for details closer to that time.

Blaize will always be remembered for her sharp mind, fierce heart, and the life she lived in service of her truth, her healing, and love.

Cremation rites rites will be accorded by Adams Crematory and arrangements are under direction of Adams Funeral Home, Ozark.