Jeanne

Your Aunt Jeanne was the most adventurous and rebellious of my sisters.  (Though I have to say that none of my siblings were terribly rebellious.)  The three girls just older than I were a trinity.  In my mind the three of them were one, though with age their various personalities became clear to me.  We had a vegetable garden in the backyard of the Lakewood Dr. home.  We were given the chore of picking bugs from the plants--not as effective an insecticide as Ortho, but good at teaching children to do chores.  I remember Anne, Jeanne, and Mary working with me on this task and others.
   Mother used to put the four of us in the tub together to bath, in birth order.  Anne was in front, and I was in the rear.  We have since had great fun reading Shel Silverstein's poem: There are too many kids in this tub, there are too many kids in this tub.  I just washed a behind that I'm sure wasn't mine.  There are too many kids in this tub.  I imagine that your little ones will have similar memories.
   When I was a young teen and Jeanne was an older teen, Mother left her in charge for the afternoon.  I consider that this meant that Jeanne was in charge of Howard, Sam, and the younger siblings.  I didn't consider that it meant she was in charge of me.  Sometime around 11:00 or 11:30 am I decided to make myself a sandwich.  Jeanne was adamant that I wait until lunchtime.  I wasn't able to sneak and make a sandwich, so I told Howard and Sam to go out and play in the street, which they were happy to do.  Jeanne took off after them.  She could catch one, but never two.  With the drag of the first on her, she couldn't move fast enough to catch the other.  So, while this entertainment played out through the window, I made my sandwich and ate it.  Finally, Jeanne returned with two boys.  Her wrath was great; I saw the danger and made for the back screen door.  Jeanne was in hot pursuit.  I ran to the back of the garden and noticed a wire our father and strung to mark  his straight rows of peas or some other vegetable.  I gave a little hop over the wire and ran by the fence at the back of the garden.  Jeanne didn't see the wire.  The speed of her pursuit threw her face first into the soft earth of the garden--soft from the organic matter (manure) that had been tilled into it.  I dared not come home for a long, long time.
   In high school, Jeanne was a stud magnet.  Sometimes two at a time would be at our house.  Jeanne would tell me about the undesirable boys who would flirt or hang around.  These stories made me a little self conscious when it came to girls.  But, they also taught me to be respectful of boundaries.
   Anne, Jeanne, and Mary conspired to teach me to be a gentleman.  They would wait at doors for me to open it for them.
   Jeanne was the most artful of my sisters, and that is saying something because all of them are artful.  I remember painting river rounded pebbles with acrylic paints.  This is a great family activity.  Jeanne would also glue the pebbles together to create stone sculptures.  I remember little stone VW Bugs, Indian chiefs, and even missionaries.  Her talent for art is passed on to her daughter Alisa Peterson.
   Jeanne moved into an apartment in the basement of an older home in Provo while attending BYU.  I remember visiting there and getting to know some of her roommates.  It was at BYU that Jeanne met Brad Mitchell, returned from a mission to the Philippines.  Mom and I visited Jeanne and Brad when they lived in the apartments our Grandpa Wood owned, and later a small house in Orem--before Brad got a job with Ditch Witch and they moved to Oklahoma.  We visited them in Perry on a couple of occasions.
   Jeanne taught Seminary and Institute for quite sometime.
   When Mom and I took our student group to Italy, we sent Emily ahead to Missouri and then dropped Jacob off at Jeanne's house before we went to the airport in Wichita.  Jacob was asleep when we left him.  Jeanne took him to Missouri for us where he spent the week with Emily at my parent's home.  Jake was terrified of Aunt Jeanne for quite some time afterwards.  No fault of Jeanne's.  But Jacob developed a terrible separation anxiety that made him very easy to discipline.  All we had to do was put him in the tub.  He couldn't stand to not have us in his sights.
  Jeanne, over the years has become one of my most compassionate sisters, though I think that all of them are.  She quickly sees the emotional suffering of others and moves swiftly to offer comfort and safety.
   Uncle Brad is a wonderful man, but too authoritarian for my taste, and I'm very authoritarian as you well know.  Brad served a short while in the military.  That may be where is hard core conservative tendencies originate, but I think that these tendencies were born in Utah and were simply compounded by military experience.  Uncle Brad has the hardest time of any of my in-laws when it comes to my liberal stance.  Yet, to his credit, he maintains a good relationship.  We just avoid politics--except on Facebook.  And on Facebook we are doing better now than in the past.  I think it is important to see the good in people beyond their political views.