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Notes for Jeanne Bertha KENNARD | ||||||||||||
At the time of her birth, Jeanne's parents were living in a house built by her father, John F. de Lamotte Kennard. The house was located on Beverly Rd. in Baltimore, Md. This house was approximately two blocks away from the house where Mary Belle & William D. Kennard, John's parents, lived. Jeanne's son, David Carson Kleinberg, M.D. states, "Jeanne Bertha Kennard was born with several problems. Historically, my grandfather told me that she had crossed eyes, and that she had seizures as a child. My grandfather, John, took her to doctors at the Wilmer Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. It is my understanding that she had strabismus surgery as a child, but had difficulty with her vision for her entire life. The visual problems and the seizures made it very difficult for my grandmother to have any confidence in training my mother in the arts particular to women of that day. "My mother told me that she remembered visiting with her grandmother (Mary Belle) frequently as a little girl. The distance required for her to walk was not great, and at that time there were no houses between the two homes. Her grandmother's house was located on Crestwood Rd., and had been known as the Register Mansion. This was a very old house and had changed configuration several times. The house is still standing on Crestwood Rd. The area was known as Beaulah Land at that time. It was in the area of Baltimore known as Idelwild. "My mother also told me about several of her relatives, one of which she referred to as 'Uncle Win with the wooden leg'. His real name was Winfield Scott Drach, who was her Great-Great-Uncle. My research found that Uncle Win had indeed lost his leg during the Civil War. He had been on a pension by the U.S.government. "Mother told me that my great-grandmother died when she was about three years old, which corresponds accurately to the date of her death being 1927. My mother grieved for the loss of her grandmother, but never seemed to discuss her grandfather much after that. She described playing with her grandfather as a child and remembering him fondly because of this. He would let her tie him to a chair with a ribbon which gave her great joy. She was very saddened by his death as well. "My mother's family stayed in the house on Beverly Rd. for quite some time, and my mother attended Stoneleigh Elementary School. Her parents moved out of the house where she was born, and spent the next years in an area called Essex in Baltimore. She graduated from Kenwood Senior High School in 1941. After high school, my mother made an attempt at professional training by attending Towson State Teachers College. This apparently didn't go very well, and she later tried her hand at law school in Baltimore. "While in law school, she fell in love with another law student, Frank Chuman. Frank however, was of Asian descent and my grandparents did not tolerate the relationship. My mother grieved for that relationship for the rest of her life. Frank became a successful lawyer after moving to California shortly after graduation. "When mother was in her early 20's, she had a job at the Social Security Administration building in Baltimore. There she met William Kleinberg, a fellow employee. I believe they courted for two years prior to my birth in 1949. "My mother had a long history of rebellious behavior, beginning with her refusal to continue in the religion of her family which was Roman Catholic. She began to attend the Church of the Nativity on Cedarcroft Rd. in Baltimore. She seemed to get along with the rector of that church, a soft spoken man named George B. Scriven. Mother spent the majority of the remainder of her life attending this church. "The marital relationship was complicated by the fact that William was Jewish, which caused no end to the unrest in her home. A frequent argument revolved around the concept of my mother's promise to my father that she would convert to Judaism after they were married. This argument continued until my father's death in 1985. "Because of the frequent family discord, my maternal grandmother Bertha supposedly gave instructions to my mother to stay with her husband and his family, and ignore her own family. This was mainly caused by my grandmother's understanding of the prejudice displayed by her family regarding my father's religion. It was primarily for this reason that my mother and father had very little to do with my mother's side of the family for our entire lives. "Unfortunately, my grandmother died when I was three months old and I never knew her. By all accounts, particulary by my father's family, my grandmother was a wonderful woman who was skilled in every art particular to women of the age. Apparently she was a great cook, a fine housekeeper and skilled at landscaping art. Many of the flowers and top plants I found around the house where I grew up had been planted by my grandmother. Although it was hard for my mother to get along with her mother, her loss was noticed by everyone. "My mother often lamented that her mother would never let her do anything as a child. She stated that Grandmother would put her on a chair to read while Grandmother performed chores around the house. Apparently, this caused my mother a great deal of concern, as she eventually realized that she was severely lacking in homemaking skills. "It was clear to me by the end of my mother's life that there had been a birth injury to the right side of her brain during delivery. When I came home from Viet Nam, my father told me that my mother was supposed to have had a brain tumor. He told me that this had been explained to him by the doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore as the cause for her lifelong unusual behavior. However, while I was in medical school, I read about brain injury on the right side of the brain which described in great detail the specific behavior and difficulties my mother had suffered during her life. "She was in fact delivered at home, and there is no record as to the occurrence of any unusual events. Mother never learned to drive a car, nor was she able to do anything which required hand-eye coordination. Furthermore, she was raised during the great depression of 1929, being only five years old when it began. Of note is the fact that many of the people who were at this stage during the great depression behave similarly with respect to the concept of material goods. My mother could best be described as a "pack rat" because she would never throw anything away. She frequently referred to the fact that she had grown up during the great depression and would remind you that, 'you could never tell when you would need something again!' this "pack rat" like behavior was a major source of ill feeling between my parents for my entire life. "My parents had three children who are still living, including myself." | ||||||||||||
Last Modified 24 Nov 2000 | Created 23 Feb 2017 by EasyTree for Windows95 |