Introduction

Jean Adams 1916 -- 2008

This blog is not a blog.

It is a kind of guest book and memorial web site for Jean Adams. The main contributors will probably be her children, grandchildren and children-in-law. When we figure out how to organize it, the features that allow visitors to leave notes or comments will be enabled. Having passed on at the ripe old age of 92, we realize few of the handful of her contemporaries who are still alive will be in a condition to trek up to Reno on short notice. I can almost hear her in my minds ear saying "How are y'all going to have a wake with no whiskey?" Virtual has is virtues however. This "blog" can serve as a slow motion memorial service...a pace "Mommie" would appreciate.

There really wasn't much surprising or even sad about Mommie's passing. She was tired and, in perfect keeping with her character through the worst and best of her life, accepting. Fuss and drama were not her style and the pomp of a ceremony was something she specifically asked us not to indulge. That is why I launch this little cyber memorial in a not terribly downcast tone, though I miss her...all the family inform me that a "celebration of a full life" is proper intent for this and I agree.

This woman was a great example of how little a big ego or a reputation have to do with a successful life. Hers was a long life and she chose to work for the successes that really matter and she achieved them. Measured against the difficulties her generation and she personally over came, her fullfillments are the more remarkable. The independence and self-sufficiency of her children having been high on the short list of things Mommie labored and cajoled to bring about, we who bring these stories are grateful for her life and each have much to be thankful for in her influences on us. We will probably continue for quite some time to realize or discover good things large and small that she imparted to us.

I anticipate that many of the posts here will be remembrances, stories from our various times and adventures [and lessons] with Jean that family and friends can recount and share. If you are not on the list of enabled contributors, just send along your story by mail of any sort or call one of the family, and I will put it up here. Bits of biography may come in from the years before most of us were born, pictures, appreciations and anecdotes....all that stuff that "tells your life" to others will be welcomed here. I know from my futile attempts to drag mommie into the computer age that a few people who might most enjoy what we mean to share here will not be handy with browsers or perhaps have access to the high speed internet connection that makes this tool convenient. If I hear from such folks, I can reformat this for printing and send along hard copy installments if and as the stories accumulate. Large print edition available at no extra charge!

Matriarch of blue nosed mules is a working title...some will wonder if it has some political reference. Not at all, as far as I know. Often when I was being a thoughtless child, she would tell me I had "the manners of blue nosed mule". I suppose it is an expression from the "Missourah" of her youth but I don't know...never heard it from any other person in my life. Some more dignified title [but lets don't get carried away with dignity] may come to me later. Mom didn't tell many jokes...she found more than enough to laugh at in her everyday observations of the world.

One trove of history that I have been sitting on for two years is Jean's collections of photos. Most are from our family life and her world travels as a retiree but many also come from WWII era when history uprooted young Americans and tossed them across the continent like so many dice...I will try to scan and put up the ones that best seem to tell her story.

-George