Dear future family genealogists:
I’m writing this to tell you a little about myself—something to help flesh out what online documents might tell you. I was the first child born to Donald Duane Scott and Peggy Kathryn Williams Scott. Three years and three days after I was born, my little brother Jerry Duane arrived. Three years and a month after he showed up, Janet Lynn was born.
I inherited most of my Germanic, Scottish , and Finish DNA from Dad and most of my British Isles and Scandinavian DNA from Mom. Physically, I look most like my dad’s side of the family and my personality most matched his.
Right now, at 71 years old, I’m 5’4” tall. When I was younger, I stood almost 5’6” tall. Like most people, as I got older my spine compressed and some of that height disappeared. My feet are bigger than they were when I was younger—about a size and a half larger. A little research told me that pregnancy hormones relax the ligaments in your feet, causing the bones to spread and widen. And if that’s not bad enough, as people age their feet tend to get widen too. No wonder people wear sensible shoes when they’re older. I’m not going to publish my shoe size.
I had dark brown hair when I was younger. Now the brown has lightened and it’s slowly turning grey. My hair wasn’t naturally curly like the women in my maternal line or even a little bit wavy. It was just straight. When I was little my mom would set my hair in rollers or pin curls at night. As a teen, I set it in large rollers and spent hours under my hair dryer to get my hair just right. It’s a wonder my brain didn’t cook because I’d set my hair wet before going to bed, then put the hair dryer bonnet over it, turn on the dryer, and fall asleep. At some point during the night, I’d wake up enough to turn off the dryer. I’m not sure how I managed to sleep on those torture devices, but I did.
I’ve worn glasses or contact lenses since I was about eight years old. Mom first took me to the eye doctor after one of those school screenings we used to have showed that I wasn’t seeing very well. My first reaction after coming out of the eye doctor’s office wearing my cat-eye glasses was amazement at all I’d been missing. I could see individual leaves on trees! I could read signs! That thrill didn’t last. Before long, I’d wear the glasses out of the house in the morning and then hide them in my lunch box when I got on the bus. I didn’t like the way I looked in them. At school I’d keep them in my desk until I absolutely had to read something on the chalkboard. What can I say? I was a vain little kid. When I was a freshman in high school, I was able to get contact lenses for the first time. For the first time I could see without having to suffer with ugly glasses and the world was clear to me all the time. My next adventure will be cataract surgery in a few years. I plan on having the kind of lens replacement that would let me see without glasses or contacts.
Speaking of school, I was a good student. I nearly got all A’s, with some B’s thrown in once in a while in elementary school and junior high. One time—I think it was in 3rd grade--I got a C. Horrors! In high school I continued to do well. I was in the National Honor Society and was a National Merit Semifinalist. Sports weren’t my thing in high school, but not many sports were available for girls then. In fact, the only girls’ sports team that existed was a swim team during the four years I was at Jackson High School and that would have required me getting my hair wet, so that didn’t happen.
Instead, I was involved in music. I started playing the cornet in fifth or sixth grade and continued with it until switching to French horn when I was a little older. I loved being part of the band crowd and made a majority of my friendships there. My high school was only a few years old when I started there so all our uniforms and instruments were brand new, making them seem more special. I can still remember all the words to my high school fight song but not how my French horn part went. I almost didn’t continue on with music when I got to college. A month into my first semester at Arizona State University, one of my dorm friends found out that I had been in high school band and she urged me to join the Sun Devil Band. I tried out and made it. The director put me into a squad of three guys. The squad leader, a sax player by the unlikely name of Spike, was two years older than me and was someone I wanted to get to know. He was kind of shy so I started dating a trumpet player instead. After a few weeks, that relationship fizzled and Spike worked up the nerve to ask me out. Three years later, we got married.
I’ve always like to read. As a little kid I went through phases of what kind of books interested me. I read lots of books about dog breeds. I read all of the Trixie Beldon and Nancy Drew mysteries. I read novels. I read some of the classics. I always had a library book going. Nowadays, I belong to two book clubs that each meet once a month. One is devoted to mystery books and the other includes novels, biographies, historical, and non-fiction books. I don’t visit the library very often now. Instead, I borrow library books online or buy books to read on my iPad. I like it that way so books don’t pile up here in the house.
I’ve always been a person who liked order and cleanliness. I grew up in a house that was kept clean and tidy at all times, which helped to form my habits but honestly, I think it’s also part of my genetic makeup. I’m constantly putting things straight and symmetrical. I attack dirty dishes and floors with a vengeance. If something’s not in its place, I’m compelled to put it where it belongs. I make my bed every morning. I’d never leave a dirty dish or glass in the sink overnight. I wipe down the shower after I use it. When I was teaching, I’d clean the desk tops every day after the students left. It’s automatic to me. It’s not something I have to think about. My brain needs order and cleanliness.
I can’t sing. Never could. Even my second-grade music teacher agreed.
I tried dance lessons but dancing didn’t come easily. I’d like to be a person who dances, but my feet don’t agree. My brain doesn’t read the man’s signals when he leads. Maybe I’ll try again someday.
I don’t like to play cards. That makes Spike sad. But at least I gave him children who would play cards with him.
I don’t like to do jigsaw puzzles or see the hundreds of pieces spread all over.
I do like to try new recipes. Most days I enjoy cooking. Cookies are my favorite thing to make. I enjoy making them to give to neighbors when they move in or as gifts.
I love Mexican food of all types. Ice cream is my favorite dessert--but only quality ice cream like Blue Bell or Häagen Dazs or Ben & Jerry's. I adore high quality dark chocolate but don't care for milk chocolate at all.
I love old roaming through old cemeteries to find the graves of my ancestors. I enjoy genealogy research and building my family tree.
I like to play an online Scrabble game called Words with Friends with two of my best friends. Every day I also play Wordle, where you get 6 chances to guess a 5-letter word. As soon as I have the word I text it to the Weirdles—Spike, Erin, and Niki—and they text their results to me.
I love getting pedicures but (almost) never get manicures. Polish never lasts on my fingernails because I’m always putting my hands in water to clean something. I keep my nails short and sometimes wear clear polish on them. I’d like to have beautiful hands and nails, but I’ll never do it. My fingers are another thing that have changed size over the years. My finger joints have arthritis in them and several of my fingers are crooked from it. I tried on my original wedding ring a few years ago and couldn’t get it past my first knuckle. Even my most recent diamond wedding ring needs to be resized and it’s only fifteen years old. Until that happens, I wear silicone rings. They stretch.
My chosen career was teaching. I started by teaching fifth grade for a few years. Then I was asked to teach a 5/6 split. That was a hard year trying to teach two separate curriculums in the same room. Then I moved on to teaching sixth grade math. I really liked that because math had always been a favorite subject of mine in school. After only a year of sixth math I got a job teaching 7th grade math and then was moved to 8th grade pre-algebra. After two years of that, I was also given an algebra class. A few years later, all 8th grade students in the state of California were put in algebra classes. That’s when I really had fun teaching. Algebra was way more interesting to teach than arithmetic had ever been. I tried my best to make the subject memorable to my students, even bravely teaching them to sing a quadratic formula song. Over the years, former students would come back to the middle school to visit and tell me that things I had taught them really stuck in their brains. They said they appreciated the lengths I went to in explaining new ideas and making them accessible. I know I was a much better teacher as the years went on.
The things I’m most proud of in my life are my kids and my marriage. It was a thrill to discover I was carrying twins back in 1977. I went into the delivery room not knowing their genders since sonagrams weren’t offered back then. We were fortunate to have two beautiful, healthy identical twin girls, each weighing over 6 pounds. We named them Nicole Irene and Erin Eileen. Fourteen months later I was pregnant again and just before the girls turned two years old, their 9 lb. baby brother Jordan Scott was born. That kept me busy for a long time. I had one more pregnancy when my kids were all teenagers. Instead of adding to our household, it was a surrogate for my brother Jerry and his wife Kim. In 1993 when I was 41 years old I gave birth to Abbey, a very special girl to me.
Spike and I married on 18 Aug 1973 and celebrated our 50th anniversary this year. Who knew that the goofy shy saxophone player I met in 1970 would turn into a kind, hardworking husband and the best possible dad and grandpa? His career moved us all over the country, but we always made the best of it and our kids adapted well. We were always conservative with our money so now we live securely in retirement. I hope we have many years left together.
In 2003 Niki married Corey Stringer and the following year Erin married Andrew Malahowski. Both men are top-notch sons-in-law. My grandchildren are Charlotte JoAnn Stringer, born in 2008; Sonia Marie Malahowski, born in 2009; and Peter James Stringer, born in 2009. All three are intelligent, funny, talented, and kind. One of the saddest days in my life came in May 2008 when my grandson Zachary Evan Malahowski was stillborn. I never got to watch him grow up, but I'll always hold him in my heart. In 2024 Irene Durbak is going to join the Evans clan. We're thrilled to have her as part of the family.
I've had a wonderful life so far!
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