Notable Neighbors
by Julie Gabell
Jeanette Thompson
Jeanette Thompson gets “high” on education! For thirty-five years she dedicated herself to teaching, yet it was not until after her father made her realize that her life was “half over” that she determined to follow her dreams.
Her love of learning got a jump start as a young girl when her father, believing that women had as much right as men to pursue their advancement, challenged her to swim across a lake one summer while the family was on vacation. Jeanette’s mother, appalled that her husband would encourage such foolishness in a girl, demanded to know why. “Because she can!” he said. Jeanette never forgot those words. Proud that his daughter had reached the opposite shore, her father further counseled the young swimmer: “Always pick a point in the distance and swim to it.” This is what Jeanette has tried to do throughout her life.
Jeanette was born when educational and career opportunities for women were relatively limited. A formal education did not come readily, and it wasn’t until after she had married and raised a family that she was able to pursue her life-long aspiration of becoming a teacher. Thus, at the age of thirty-nine she entered the Indiana University extension where she set her sights on a new point in the distance and never looked back.
Throughout this entire period her husband and children were her mainstay. When Jeanette unexpectedly became pregnant, she resolutely kept her eye on her goal. At one point, when required to live on campus for a semester, she and her youngest sons roomed at the college while her husband and twin boys kept the home fires burning. After graduation Jeanette went on to earn a Masters Degree in Education and subsequently launched a fulfilling career as a first grade teacher. Years later Jimmy, one of the “darlings of the dorm,” admitted to his mother: “My grades dramatically improved when you went to college,” an acknowledgment that thrilled her.
Even in retirement there was no holding this dynamic lady down! Soon after she and her late husband moved to Beacon Woods twenty-seven years ago, she volunteered in the Hudson Elementary School and developed a “Great Books” program to introduce young children to the classics. In subsequent years she became an active member of The Literary Circle (TLC), a book discussion group at the Hudson Library. She is currently a proud member of the Hudson Stompers, and has been known to “wow the crowds” by modeling a $600 embellished jean suit in a Civic Center fashion show. Despite these varied activities, she would be the first to tell you that it is education, particularly the education of young women, which is her first love.
To underscore this interest, she made a “deal” with each of her grandchildren. After high school graduation, she gave them a trip to a destination of their choice—but only on the condition that they would return and go to college. If not, they had to pay back the cost of the trip! This bargaining ultimately resulted in one granddaughter’s becoming a pilot for Southwest Airlines, and another founding a charter school in Charlotte, North Carolina.
This past Christmas Jeanette received a gift that she feels brings her life full circle. In Jeanette’s name, one of her granddaughters financed a year of schooling for a young girl in India. For someone whose life has been dedicated to education and the advancement of women, this was a gift par excellence--one befitting the gift that Jeanette Thompson herself has been to those who know her.
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