Cheryl Ann Jennings

Cheryl Ann Jennings is the second child of Georgia Lee Powers and Kenneth Wayne Jennings born on November 27, 1947 in Muleshoe, Bailey County, Texas.

​She married Michael Deming on April 27, 1973.

Name: Cheryl Ann Jennings
Birth: November 27, 1947 Muleshoe, Bailey, Texas USA
Death:
Buried:
 
Father: Kenneth Wayne Jennings
Mother: Georgia Lee Powers

​Other:
Married: April 27, 1973. Zion National Park, Utah USA

Spouse: Michael James Deming
Birth:
Death:
Buried:
 
Father:  Oscar Verl Deming
Mother: Mary Dalley

Other:
 

Children: Ryan Franklin Deming (1974-   ); Travis Parley Deming (1975 -    ); Georgiana Marie Deming (1975 0   ): Darwin Gardner Deming (1980 -      ); Andrea Louise Deming (1981 -     )

Cheryl Ann Jennings Deming (daughter of Georgia Lee Powers Jennings, daughter of George Wesley Powers, Son of William Houston Powers)
            On November 27, 1947 -- Thanksgiving Day, to be exact – I was born second daughter to Kenneth Wayne and Georgia Lee Powers Jennings in Muleshoe, Texas.  I was still an infant when my parents moved the family to Richland, Washington where my younger brother Kenneth, Jr. was born.  After a few years my older sister Jo Lynn had some orthopedic medical needs that required us to move to the Seattle area to be closer to the hospital.  We lived in Bothell, Lynnwood, and Edmonds during my childhood, teen-age, and young-adult years.
            I have fond memories of my childhood and youth, mostly centered around the good times I had with my brother and sister.  We played “Cowboys and Indians” in the orchards and the chicken sheds, skated and played ball in the quiet street in front of our house, and laughed and talked throughout all those years.  I remember fun visits with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that regretfully ended when I grew up.
            School was always the center of my life.  I was a serious student, working harder than most and making excellent grades.  Being one of the “Sputnik Generation” (those American teens who found themselves pushed int science and math in order to catch up with the Russians), I took challenging classes in high school, including Russian, physiology, and all the math that was offered.  I distinguished myself academically but found I had missed out on most of the fun of being a teenager.
            During these growing-up years, most of my social life centered around my family’s devout attendance at the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  In addition to Sunday classes and services, the children and teens met during the week for social activities.  In high school I attended daily early morning class on the scriptures.  During these years of religious training, I absorber values and pondered beliefs which, unknown to me at the time, would mean more to me than any other education I would acquire.
            Suffering academic burn-out in high school, I bypassed opportunities at the university and started college at the local community college.  After two years of changing majors from psychology to history to clothing-and-textiles to anthropology, I quit college to work at a local bank for a year and to think about what I wanted to study.  After that year of full-time work, I finally decided to study microbiology and graduated three years later from Brigham Young University in 1972 with a major in microbiology and a minor in chemistry.  I immediately spent one year interning in medical technology to complete my education.
            While attending B.Y.U. I met a mathematics graduate student named Michael Deming who jokingly asked me to marry him on our first date.  Being 24 and almost an old maid, I said yes, of course.  This so shocked him that he decided we should date further and get to know one another.  Since Michael had secured a full-time job as a computer programmer at B.Y.U. while he was working on his graduate degree, we settled down right there in Provo, Utah.
            I worked at the Brigham Young University Student Health Center Laboratory until we started our family ten months later with the birth of Ryan, followed by Travis a year and half after that.  Georgiana was born three years later, Darwin in another year and a half, and finally Andrea fourteen months after Darwin.  With five children under the age of eight, needless to say, I never gave another thought to my career in medicine.  I found raising my children to be a very challenging and satisfying activity.  Our children became the center of our lives, and we stayed close to our upbringing in the church as we taught our children.　My husband served as a leader in our church, and many was the time that he sat behind the pulpit as I juggled five thankfully well-behaved young children in the congregation.
            With two little boys romping around and Georgiana on the way, we longed to move further out of town to a place with some acreage where we could raise children, vegetables, and livestock.  We moved to Mapleton, Utah – just 15 minutes south of B.Y.U. – to an acre with a three-bedroom rambler that seemed like a palace to us at the time.  We tilled, built a barn, planted fruit trees, and raised chickens, ducks, geese, rabbis, and a horse. With room for the children to roam and plenty of chores for them to do, it was our dream come true.
            When my youngest was still a new-born, the B.Y.U. Student Health Center Lab badly needed some part-time help, so I went back to work for a few hours a week while my husband came home to tend the kids and work on his home computer.  This job at the lab gradually turned into full-time work by the time Andrea entered kindergarten.  After a few years I was promoted to Laboratory Manager, the position I presently hold.  I
thoroughly love my job.  I’ve enjoyed the challenge of using my talents in a medical setting, and especially feel that a career in a service field suits me perfectly.  Of course, I still think of it as my second job.  My first job, largest time commitment, and greatest priority is still my children – the hardest, most frustrating, most delightful and rewarding job any woman can have.
            Of course, our lives have been filled with all kinds of peripheral activities.  All three boys as well as Michael have been heavily involved in Boy Scouts through our church program.  Dad and all the boys are Eagle Scouts with “palms” for numerous extra merit badges. The girls took dance lessons for twelve-plus years while I “paid” for their lessons by doing massive scenery projects for their dance reviews every year.  Mike and I served in assorted leadership and teaching positions in our church, and all five children have had leadership roles with their church youth groups that have kept them busy.
            Our children have grown into responsible, kind, hard-working teenagers and young adults.  So far they’ve manage to avoid the numerous pit-falls of youth. We’ve kept them busy with plenty of work and plenty of fun.  In 1994 we decided our acre – affectionately known as “Deming National Park” – deserved better than a 1950’s three-bedroom rambler. So we ripped the roof off our one-story house and added an entire second floor and full attic, doing almost all the designing and work ourselves.  Three years later it is still an on-going project, already full of fond memories of the summer of our “hardest work ever”.  Every summer our family packs up and heads out for a week to camp in the exotic red-rock country of Southern Utah. These are the fun times that make up for all the hard work and have been our families favorite times together.
            Our kids have grown into lives of their own.  Ryan is going to college.  Travis is serving as a missionary for our church in Stockholm, Sweden.  Georgiana, Darwin, and Andrea are still in high school, but we see less of them than we used to.  Michal and I spend more time with just each other. We both work at B.Y.U., so we go to work and come home together. He tells me I’m the perfect wife (whether he really thinks so or not!), and I tease him that I keep him around for “heat in the winter and shade in the summer”.  We are still devoted to each other after 24 years of marriage – still bet friends and lovers.
            I have great memories to look back, most centering around the people I love, from my first relatives when I was a child to the children I have now.  I am proud of my accomplishments in my family, church, and work.  I still have the adventure of grandkids to look forward to.  I’m content, and as Mike and I say to each other, “it doesn’t get much better than this.”
 
Addendum
Ryan, Travis, Georgiana, Darwin, and Andrea in a Nutshell
Ryan (born February 6, 1974) is the “Renaissance Man” in the Deming family.  He is very intelligent, doing well and having interests in such diverse subjects as math, all the sciences, international relations, creative writing, economic, art, history, and computers.  He has struggled with a learning disability since third grade.  This forced him to work extra hard for his achievements in school, but also taught him self-discipline and perseverance.  In high school he enjoyed cross country running, business class, and international relations activities.  He is presently attending a local college, working toward a degree in economics, and works part-time building designer doors.
            Travis (born August 19, 1975) has been an artist since he was a child, chronically doodling on any paper that fell into his clutches.  At the same time, he is attracted to natural science.  He has kept a number of snakes as pets, put together a 20-plus piece animal skull collection, and assembled a deer skeleton from a road-kill he picked up when he was a young teen.  In high school he also enjoyed cross-country running, art classes, and drama activities.  He attended Brigham Young University for two year, studying int their fine arts design program. He is presently working as a missionary for our church in Stockholm, Sweden where he has learned to speak fluent Swedish.
            Georgiana (born October 17, 1978) has hopes of becoming a professional actress.  As a naturally outgoing child, she was attracted to the performing arts like dancing and drama.  She took jazz, ballet, and tap lessons for 13 years. In high school she blossomed out in drama, earning a lead role in many of the plays they have done there.  She has also done community theater and some film work. In high school she has enjoyed drama club, French and Russian classes, and journalism work.  She heads off to college in the fall of 1997 to study theater and film.
            Darwin (born June 24, 1980) has natural talents in the areas of math and science, and thinks he would like to study astronomy in college after he graduates from high school in 1998.  He is a typical teen in many ways, enjoying singing and dancing to his favorite rock music and playing all kinds of computer games.  He is a sprinter for the high school track team and has just taken up the discus throw.  He has lots of girlfriends, but so far is content to keep them at arm’s length, still preferring “guy” activities with his guy-friends.
            Andrea (born September 8, 1981) leans more to the sciences than she does to the arts.  She cruises through math and science classes, but work harder for good grades in English. The most organized of all the kids, her room is always tidy and her days’ activities well-planned.  She is considering a career in medicine, but at 15 is still a little young to say for sure.  For fun she is on the high school swim team and is a committee member for our city’s youth leadership group.  She also enjoys dancing, having taken 11 years of lessons in jazz, ballet, and tap.
(From Powers Family Book compiled by Georgia Powers Jennings)