Jane Wayne

 

Jane Wayne

Growing up I had a favorite spinster aunt who we jokingly called Jane Wayne. I always felt Jane and I were kindred spirits because we both seemed to be rather shy and awkward around other people, including each other. Because of this I always felt rather sorry for Jane and what I perceived as her solitary, lonely life. It’s only been recently, as I dug into old pictures and writings Jane kept, that I began to see another side to Jane.

Jane was my father’s much older sister. She was born on Sunday, November 30, 1912 on a farm a few miles north of a small town called Medcalf, Illinois. For seventeen years, Jane and her two sisters, Francis (1911) and Charity (1914), had their parents, Edith and Orval Henry, all to themselves. Then along came my dad, Orval Martin (aka Sonny) in 1929 followed quickly by his brother, Bruce (aka Buddy) in 1930.

Reread that first paragraph and think about those dates. Three girls born in a span of four years and then a seventeen years break followed by two boys in two years. What was going on in my grandparents’ marriage? Keep in mind that back then abstinence was the best form of birth control. I can’t help but wonder what Orval did to piss Edith off so much that they didn’t have sex for seventeen years.

But let’s get back to Jane. Based upon her written recollections, she had to overcome many health issues growing up. At just a few months old she contracted polio. Her mother and grandmother used heat and massage on her legs which prevented permanent damage but this initially impacted her walking. Later she had to have her tonsils and adenoids removed. The doctor came to the family’s farmhouse and did the surgery on the kitchen table. When Jane was around ten she had German measles and the mumps at the same time. She also told us that she was a chubby child until she got some strange stomach flu, after which she remained skinny the rest of her life.

With all these illnesses I would have guessed Jane had a solitary, sad childhood but the way she told it her childhood was packed with people and adventures. Most of the people she interacted with were related in some way.  They lived on a farm that was adjacent to her Grandpa Gaines’ farm and her other grandfather, Henry Kendall, was the mayor of her hometown of Metcalf.  The country school she attended was called the Kendall and Gaines School and Jane's Aunt Inez was one of her teachers. Jane recounts a childhood spent visiting family and wandering the countryside with her sisters and cousins. Think “Little House on the Prairie." 

About the time my father was born the depression was hitting hard and the family had lost the farm. A relative found Jane’s father a factory job in Indianapolis. I don't think Jane’s mother worked outside the home but still my father always said that it was his sisters who raised Bruce and him. This makes sense since the girls would have been in their late teens while his mother would have been pushing forty by this time. I imagine Jane was the main babysitter though. She always had a caregiver personality. Plus Francis and Charity both married and left home when the boys were still young. Jane remained single.

My dad always said that Jane never married because she was too picky. I’m not sure about that. She had at least one serious boyfriend that I know of. After she died I inherited her old photos and there were several of an unnamed handsome WWII soldier. My cousin Diana (Bruce’s daughter) and I used to speculate that Jane’s beau died in the war. We even used that as fodder for a story Diana had to write for English class in high school. I wish we’d saved our story because I’m sure the imagination of two teenage girls was more interesting than Jane’s real life reasons for not marrying her soldier boy.

I do know that Jane stayed home while all the other children left. She got a job and helped pay the bills while her parents grew old and eventually died of cancer.  After they were gone, she moved into her own apartment and supported herself with a secretarial job at P.R Mallory and Company, a major producer of batteries and electrical components in Indianapolis. As far as I know she worked for them her entire life. 

By the time I was born, Jane was in her mid-forties. As a child she always seemed pretty old to me, but she was actually only middle aged. Her calm, good natured personality made Jane all the children’s favorite aunt. My cousin Diana and I loved to go spend the night with her on the weekends. I never wondered if we were cramping her social life. As far as I knew the only social life Jane had was her bowling league and the occasional Mallory party. Jane did love to dress up for these work parties. I inherited several of her party dresses which came in handy later when my daughter and her friends wanted to play dress up.

     

Speaking of playing dress up, Diana and I loved to dress up when we stayed with Jane. We would wrap ourselves in her silk scarves and adorn ourselves in her costume jewelry and have parties with Jane. She was so patient with us and allowed us to get creative with her things and boss her around to our hearts content. We’d tease her about the way she talked which we perceived as being too “country”. A couple favorite expressions were how she pronounced “toilet" as “terlet" and how she started some sentences with “wail” instead of “well”. To us, she seemed hopelessly old fashioned, and we couldn’t help but make fun of her nativity. Still, she always had a hint of a smile as she watched our shenanigans and looking back, I suspect that she wasn’t as clueless as we thought.

Jane was a career girl at a time when most women dreamed of being a housewife. It was a bold choice for a young woman to remain single and childless at that time. World War II had ended and the men had returned to take back their jobs and resume being the breadwinners. Jane may not have been a great beauty, but surely she had her pick of decent men? Instead she chose to be her own breadwinner. When we later teased her about never marrying, Jane would just smile slyly and stay mum. I wish I’d really asked her about it when I grew up. I’m sure she had some interesting reasons for remaining single.

Jane was always very independent. She took the bus to work every day and walked to nearby shops for whatever she needed.  She made all of life’s decisions by herself - what foods to eat, what clothes to buy, where to live. She took many trips to visit her sisters over the years, flying by herself to Chicago, Maryland, and Miami. After she retired, Jane took herself on a European tour and would proudly show off her picture album whenever she could.  

   

I don’t think retirement was kind to Jane. I think she needed a reason to go out in the world every day. Once she settled into retirement she spent too much time alone. My cousin and I were grown up and no longer came over to party with Jane. Her brothers stopped by when they could but everyone was very busy, too busy to spend much time with the family caregiver. Jane started to exhibit signs of dementia. Sometimes my father would get calls saying that Jane had been found walking along a busy road in the middle of the night looking for the bus to take her to work. She needed work.

Eventually it was decided that, for her own safety, it was time to put Jane in a senior living facility. For such an independent woman this must have been terrifying. She had lived her entire life on her own, doing things her way. Now she would have to live with strangers and follow other people's rules. I admit that after Jane went to the “home” I saw her less and less. She seemed even more timid and confused and sometimes she would cry. Often she didn’t know who I was and I struggled to find things to talk about with her. She was no longer my “Jane Wayne.” She died as she lived her life - alone.

Still, Jane lived for 85 amazing years. I’m in awe of all the changes that she survived. Two World Wars. The Great Depression. Polio and German measles epidemics. She got to experience so many advancements in her lifetime - from riding in a horse and buggy as a child to flying in jets across the Atlantic as a retiree. My spinster aunt was liberated well before the women’s liberation movement. She had a fulfilling job with friends and a huge family to share life’s big events with. She had a busy, interesting life without ever marrying or having children and she never expressed any regrets.  As I look back at Jane’s amazing life, I am the one who has regrets. I regret not encouraging Jane to talk more about her life, to tell me her story before she left us. 

My cousins and I started calling our beloved aunt “Jane Wayne” when we were young simply because it rhymed and was fun to say. I think we even had a theme song for her where we repeated her name over and over. It only recently occurred to me that Jane Wayne might be considered the feminine version of John Wayne, the movie star who was everyone’s big hero when I was a child. Could this mean that perhaps Jane Wayne was a hero in her own way? A SHEro? Instead of pitying Jane for what I thought was her empty, quiet little life, I’ve come to admire her for the courageous life she actually led.