When she was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer just before Christmas in 2013, Jennifer Kristie Silver Adamson didn’t let the news put a damper on the holidays.
She decorated the house, played video games with the boys and hosted family and friends.
The only thing she did differently was shop for camouflage attire, which she wore to remind everyone that she was a fighter and aimed to win her battle against cancer.
“She was tough as nails,” said her husband Scott Doran Adamson. “She’d go for a six-hour infusion of chemotherapy and then go to work the next day. You really could not sit this woman down”
Adamson of Dallas, Ga., died March 9 at her home, surrounded by family. She was 45. A memorial service was held Saturday at A.S. Turner & Sons Funeral Home in Decatur.
As a child, Adamson was spirited and strong-willed, said her father, John Silver of Cape Coral, Fla. She was born in 1969 in Tampa and grew up in Fort Myers. The family loved boating, but she preferred horse barns and going barefoot. “She never wanted to wear shoes,” he said. “I was thankful that we lived in Florida.”
At age 11, Adamson fell in love with horses and won several ribbons in hunter jumper competitions. When she wasn’t riding horses, she played the viola. She also served as a worthy advisor of her Rainbow Assembly, which is part of the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls, a Masonic youth service organization.
After high school, Adamson moved to Atlanta. In 1998, she and Scott met when he stopped by to visit her roommate. “I walked in and Jen was sitting on the couch. She was cute – short with olive-tone skin, dark eyes, and black hair,” Scott said. “She was really outgoing, full of spunk and humor. I sat next to her and chatted her up. The rest is history.”
Two days before their wedding on April 21, 2001, Adamson, pregnant with their first child, was in the hospital with pneumonia but she refused to postpone the nuptials. “It was like she jumped out of the hospital bed and into her wedding gown,” Scott said. “She had a tenacious attitude. Come hell or high water, she would get it done.”
Despite her illness, Adamson maintained a positive attitude, said Nancy Bentley, a co-worker at Nations Roof, where Adamson was a project administrator. “She was a free-spirited, mischievous, camo-wearing girl,” Bentley said. “She loved her red and black camouflage Birkenstocks. She had a smile that lit up a room. I’ll miss her smile.”
Her father, a colon cancer survivor, said he did not realize his genetic predisposition for the disease until about five years ago. “It was too late for my daughter,” John said. “People should get colonoscopies earlier.”
When a friend needed help with his horses, Adamson and fellow horse lover Terri Capote of Acworth volunteered to help take care of the animals. “She had a lot more experience with horses,” Capote said.” I learned from her how to handle them and to stay calm around horses. She had an easygoing and caring nature.”
Adamson also had her goofy side, and would break out in song in the middle of a store, said her best friend and niece Shannon Mosier Clyburn of Austell. She also loved hummingbirds and Gerber daisies and was an ace at archery.
Most of all, she cherished time with her sons, Clyburn said. She bought an extra television and game console so that she and the boys could play video games together in the living room.
“She could whip anyone’s butt, including her husband’s, on those video games,” Clyburn said. “She was a very cool mom. She rode a four-wheeler and would play in the dirt and the mud with her boys. Her children were her world.”
On the day she died, Scott said he sat at her bedside that morning – professing his love. Suddenly she turned toward him and quipped, “Scott, I’m not dying!” She passed away later that evening.
“That was our girl. She put up an 18-month fight and was very adamant and stubborn to the end,” her mother Natalie “Lee” Silver said. “She told me about a month before she died that she felt blessed. She had so many friends, was deeply loved and had a lot of fun.”
In addition to her husband and parents, Adamson is survived by her sons Doran and Logan Adamson of Dallas; and her sister, Heather O’Connell of Cape Coral, Fla.
