All About Jane
July 20, 2010
It is the end of an era. We were four and now we are three. Jane, our sister, passed away on Saturday, July 10, 2010. She had been ill but her death happened rather quickly. I hadn’t expected to reopen my blog on such a sad note, but I want to remember Jane as a member of my family. The best way to tell you about her is to draw a comparison between the two of us. She was 2 ½ years younger than I was, and we were the very antithesis of each other. One way to describe her is to quote from a letter written to our mother in 1932 from a former landlady of ours in New Orleans. In this letter she wrote, and I quote, “Is Mary still the leader she was when she was much younger? I doubt not that she is…. Does Jane still cling around Father’s neck so that he would not go to the grandest ball in the world if she did not want him to?” Maybe this was the beginning of Jane’s shyness. According to other members of the family she never grew out of that timid trait.
This picture should illustrate the difference in our physical appearance. Consider the contrasts as I point them out. Jane was the only real brunette in the family. Her hair was naturally curly, and notice mine was so straight it didn’t even have a squiggle. All my life I wanted curly hair. Is this when my wish started - with Jane? She had extremely beautiful china blue eyes while mine were brown; incidentally the only brown eyes in a family of blue eyes going back two generations! I always thought I was adopted. How I wished they were blue like Jane’s. She was soft, cuddly, and clinging, and I was open, active, and curious about the world.
Jane was born February 2, 1922 while we were still living with Grandma and Grandpa Schueneman in their house in Chicago after WWI. Shortly afterward, Dad bought a house in Evanston and that is where the picture was taken. |
Jane and I always went to the same schools except when I went away to college. Because Mother always sheltered Jane and yet wanted her to have the same advantages, she sent Jane to St. Francis Academy High School. But that didn’t turn out well, and she returned home and graduated from McHenry High School. Then Mother tried again, and sent Jane to the same Clarke College I had attended. That didn’t turn out well either. Jane was continuing along the path she had chosen in the letter I quoted above, staying at home and close to her family.
However, Jane did marry and worked to help her husband acquire a medical degree, all while she was having children. There were four: Michael, Pam, Janie, and Kimberly. Michael died in 2005 which was a big blow to her. The other children are now scattered geographically.
As I said, this is the end of an era, an era in which Dad always said he had been dealt a poker hand of four Queens. Now we are three - Mitzi, Joan, and I.
However, Jane did marry and worked to help her husband acquire a medical degree, all while she was having children. There were four: Michael, Pam, Janie, and Kimberly. Michael died in 2005 which was a big blow to her. The other children are now scattered geographically.
As I said, this is the end of an era, an era in which Dad always said he had been dealt a poker hand of four Queens. Now we are three - Mitzi, Joan, and I.