Week 8 - I Can Identify 

I can identify many of my ancestors. That's not the same as identifying "with". Although she died before I was born, I think I probably most identify "with" my father's sister, Betty Jean Powers.

Betty Jean was born 12 Apr 1923 in Newkirk, Oklahoma. Like me, Betty Jean was a daddy's girl, and a tomboy when she was small. Either of us would often be found playing in the dirt, climbing a tree, or helping our dad's work on my project. Like me, she had blonde hair and blue eyes. 

By the time she reached high school, she had turned tom BOY into Boy crazy. She was a member of the Wolverette Pep Club at Shawnee High School. I, too, was a member of the high school Pep Club, and was boy crazy. Photos of the Osmond brothers, the Jackson Five, Bobby Sherman, and David Cassidy adorned by walls. Like me, Betty Jean was pretty rebellious once she became a young woman.

Like me, she was the youngest in the family and spoiled (but let me be clear, I was not spoiled, much - no matter how my siblings may have seen it). Like me there was a gap between each of us to our next sibling. We both wanted the freedom to do the same things they did. Like me, she was mature for her age. Also like me, her parents were overprotective. I don't know how bad it was for her, but for me, I wasn't allowed to ride my bicycle in the street. We lived on a dead-end. It's kind of funny now, but it was not funny when all the neighbor kids made fun of me.

I didn't know Betty Jean but my grandmother often told me I was a lot like her. Many times, she would call me Betty Jean, more by action than appearance, I'm sure. Neither Aunt Betty Jean nor I liked the word, "no". So, we pretty much did was we pleased, regardless of the consequences. Looking back now, I better understand why my parents were so overprotective. Unlike me, Betty Jean didn't live to see her seventeenth birthday...

Around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, 12 August 1939, sixteen-year-old Betty Jean Powers went on a joy ride with a boy. Driving down, what was referred to as Suicide Lane about ten miles outside of Shawnee, Oklahoma, the boy pulled out of his lane, head-on into an oncoming car. Betty jean was rushed to the local hospital, where she hung on to life for three days.

I believe my life was shaped by Betty Jean's. We were very much alike. I'm certain my father was overprotective with me because of what his family had to live through losing his little sister. My grandfather never recovered from the death of his little girl. He developed a dour attitude and withdrew into himself. He forbade his only remaining daughter, Dorothy, from ever dating. The dutiful daughter she was, she obeyed, at least as far as my grandfather knew. Aunt Dorothy married in 1963 at the age of 49, less than two months after her father died. My grandmother kept the family together and lived to be 96 years old. During her last few years, when her mind wasn't always so clear, she called me Betty Jean exclusively. I never corrected her.

Betty Jean had a fire that burned in her. Had she made better choices, that fire could have raged in different ways. Because I carried that same fire, I followed in Betty Jean’s footsteps, I made bad choices, but the fire within me eventually turned into an inferno of a quest for knowledge, a love for reading, and deep desire for service.  This same fire was passed on to my own daughters, which I attempted to guide in different directions.  I’m confident it worked as my girls are well-adjusted, educated, responsible adults who are all amazing mother’s. Ironically, each of them has a daughter who is the youngest in their family. Each of them also has this same fire. Hopefully, their fire will continue to burn bright in a positive way. Betty Jean’s legacy lives on in them.