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One of Jeans skills was sewing. She sewed most of the dresses
the girls wore. They were beautifully made. Even when Janet was little,
she had a coat and the button holes were lined with material and the but-
tons were covered with material. Always they were sewn in style and
were beautifully made. She encouraged Vicki and Cindi to take a course
in sewing at a local store in order to learn to sew. For reasons that es-
cape me, neither Janet nor Alice showed any interest in sewing. Mother
taught girls to check material to know the design, to know good work.
If something that one of the girls had sewn was not right, Jean would
tell them how it should be done and urged them to take it apart and do it
right. Cindi never forgot that. When Alice was married, Jean made her
wedding dress and it had numerous pearls in its design. If Alice was not
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As a result, the wedding dress was so beautiful that the two women who
were serving on the city council with me could not believe that she had
made the dress. In the design of our house, she showed repeatedly her
skills in design in the architecture of the house and its sitting. Twice,
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She pointed this out and had it corrected. The carpenters who put in the
big windows in the family room had never seen windows framed in that
fashion. They doubted that it could be done until Jean showed them
how. They then admired it and said they would use it again in houses
they worked on.
Jean had a marvelous sense of humor. It wasnt that she was
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in a very ordinary situation. There are some people who can do that.
If she met Colleen Holbrook at Safeway they could spend 20 minutes
laughing and telling stories about the family, none of which was ever
vicious, but were simply fun stories. Her laugh was distinctive, perhaps
the best illustration is the fact that when we emerged in London from
watching a play and were laughing outside, an American woman nearby
stopped and said, Didnt you used to be Jean Holmes in Ras Tanura?
The girl was a daughter of one of our employees and simply remem-
bered her laugh from 30 years before.
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