Jennie Laverna Dean 1894-2000

This is a riveting, true story of a lady who was born in the nineteenth century, and lived through the entire twentieth century. Born in 1894 to a mother who had lost an 18-month-old baby just the year before, and who was ill herself, Jennie was told repeatedly that she wasn’t wanted. Due to her mothers’ health, she was moved from living next door to her loving grandparents in Illinois, to the plains of Kansas, where she grew up with her parents and five brothers and sisters. Among the regular hardships of life in those years, she endured more than most. She survived being trampled by cows, smallpox, fire, homesteading in Colorado, giving birth, death, a crippled baby, an abusive marriage, and many other trials in some of the hardest circumstances imaginable. This is a true account of the many trials she suffered from August 28, 1894 until her death August 29, 2000. After Jennie entered a nursing home at the age of 101, her Granddaughter, V. Charlene Beye spent many hours video taping and recording the stories she told. On her 103rd birthday she was given a draft of this book. She claimed that every word in it is true.

Author Biography

V. Charlene Beye is a 63-year-old wife, mother and grandmother. She began writing children’s stories and poetry for her four children when they were small and has continued writing over the years for her twenty-three grandchildren. She has also started a fictional novel about the lives of people from her hometown in the early 1900s. Her favorite writing project this far has been this biography of her Grandmother. She lives in a small town in central Kansas, where she spends her time writing, doing volunteer work, and visiting friends when not traveling with her husband. Her favorite pastime, other than writing, is recording books for the blind and reading local newspapers over the radio for the blind and handicapped.