Here is a brief memoir that Mom wrote:
I was born April 21, 1927 in a small hospital in Gouverneur, New York. I think my brothers had been born at home. Mother was in the hospital for at least a week, I'm told.
Mot of my earliest memories are not actual memories of events but memories of pictures of myself or family that I have seen. I know from hearing my mother talk about it that I was a scrawny baby. My mother nursed me and the doctor told her I was not getting enough nourishment, so I guess she started me on a bottle to supplement her milk.
I was a pretty little girl according to the pictures I have seen of myself as a very young child. I had long curly hair. Both of my parents were delighted to have a girl. (I had two older brothers - Hiram and Everett.)
When I was about five or six, I was a flower girl in my cousin Electa's wedding. I wore a pretty pink dress and looked very happy in the picture.
My grandmother, Electa Nichols Price Brown, lived with us. She had the big front bedroom with a double bed with a brass headboard and the best of bedroom furniture. She had given the house to my mother. Grandma Brown had lived on a farm which had burned. Her first husband had died in an accident - Jean and I went to Canton and found in the records there an account of his death in an old newspaper. As I remember it he had been drunk and fell off his horse and buggy and was dragged to his death. Grandma ran the farm herself after his death with the help of hired men. Later she married ----- Brown and I don't know whether they continued to farm or moved to town.
The house I grew up in was 98 Barnes Street and there was a gully behind the house. On the other side of the gully was Rowley Street. My Aunt Alice and Uncle Earl Brown lived on Rowley street, almost behind us. They had six children, all older than I. Alice was the cousin closest in age to me and she was at least five years older than I. The Browns and the Jennes celebrated most holidays together and were close as families.
Here is another memoir Mom wrote:
After graduation from Gouverneur High School I went to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. I met and married Tom. After graduation we moved to Buffalo where we lived for two years. There was a desperate shortage of teachers, and I took some education courses at Buffalo U. to become certified to teach. I found a job teaching a combined first and second grade in Ransomville, near Niagara Falls.
We moved to Chicago and later to Elmhurst, a western suburb of Chicago. We had five daughters over a ten-year period. I was a stay-at-home mother, heavily involved in our kids, PTA, Girl Scouts, church activities, and all that good stuff.
When our oldest was in high school I went back to school at Elmhurst College and took more education courses to become certified to teach at the high school level. We moved to Pelham Manor, New York, for a couple of years. This was a very sophisticated environment which presented a real challenge to raising kids. I was happy to move back to the Midwest in 1966 to Clarendon Hills, Illinois (another western suburb of Chicago).
I did substitute teaching while in New York and when we returned to Illinois until I got a full-time job teaching Social Studies at Hinsdale South High School, where I taught for 16 years. During my teaching years we became involved in foster parenting. We had a total of four foster teenagers live with us: one girl and three boys - not all at the same time.
Summers we loaded our station wagon with our tent and camping gear and set out to explore national parks. After a few years of tent camping, we bought a used motor home, which became our base for camping, both East and West. The kids became great campers and we had some wonderful adventures together.
The girls are all married now and we have nine grandchildren. After the kids left home Tom and I started backpacking with the Sierra Club and also took up skiing in Colorado. The empty nest period has some great advantages and we have been fortunate in being able to travel since I retired. Recently we have taken several Elderhostel trips: one to Venice, Italy, one to Hawaii, and in May we went on one to Israel. We enjoy traveling and Elderhostel is a great way to go.
I have many memories of high school: feeling self-conscious, awkward, embarrassed at participation in a Dean Oratorical Contest, walking the halls balancing books on my head, Mr. Riley calling me into his office to encourage me to go to college, struggling with writing papers in Miss Eckmann's English classes, trying to ski in the hills behind the Fair Grounds.
When I graduated from high school I had no big dreams or plans for my life. It was a real financial hardship for my parents to send me to college. I had no special career ambitions. Certainly teaching was not a goal, but I found it to be satisfying (most of the time).
I would choose a small college to attend if I had it to do over.
No major triumphs or honors achieved. A minor achievement that I feel good about is climbing Half Dome in Yosemite and being able to hike in the mountains with a 40-pound pack on my back.
I would like to become fluent in Spanish before I check out. Also I would like to visit Korea with my two Korean grandchildren when they are a little older.
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