Jo Lynn Jennings

Jo Lynn Jennings is the first child of Georgia Lee Powers and Kenneth Wayne Jennings born on November 30, 1946, in Bailey County, Texas. 

​She married Douglas Venema on April 25, 1969

Name: Jo Lynn Jennings
Birth: November 30, 1946  Muleshoe, Bailey, Texas USA
Death:
Buried:
 
Father: Kenneth Wayne Jennings
Mother: Georgia Lee Powers
Other:
Married: April 25, 1969  Seattle, Washington USA

Spouse: Douglas C. Venema
Birth: May 16, 1948
Death:
Buried:

Father: Walter Venema
Mother: Anita Crum
Other:
 

Children: Gregory Allen Venema (1969 -   ); Laina Marie Venema (1976 -     ); Stephanie Lynn Venema (1979 -    )

JO LYNN JENNINS VENEMA
            Muleshoe, Texas is a great place to be from. I was born there on November 30, 1946, and it made me famous throughout my school years, since none of my friends could boast of such an exotic sounding birthplace.  My family moved to Washington state when I was just a baby, but I loved making trips back to Texas in the summers and visiting all the relatives, and especially getting to ride Buster, my uncle Clyde’s rodeo horse.  I always had a little bit of an accent by the time we got home, and all my friends thought that was pretty neat, too.
            We lived in Richland, Washington for several years, but because of a birth defect in my hip that entailed many trips to the Children’s Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle, my parents decided to move the family over there.  We lived in Bothell next, on five acres complete with orchard, barn, chicken house, and woods to play in – everything a kid needed for plenty of imaginary adventures.  From there we went to Lynnwood, and I attended school at Maple Park Elementary School, where my mother was a teacher.  I enjoyed going to school, and especially loved the library.  My great love for reading began in that library.  There it was, right in front of my young eyes – The Dragons of Blue Land.  I even remember which part of the library it was in, second shelf up from the bottom.  I haven’t stopped reading since.
            Junior high school passed with the average amount of adolescent trauma, and then it was on to high school. By this time we were living in Edmonds.  This was a busy time.  Every morning I went early to seminary class at church, and most nights were spent sitting up late studying.  Most of my school classes were college preparation classes with an emphasis on science, since I was considering a career in medicine.  My brother Ken and my sister Cheryl were doing pretty much the same thing.  We were all highly motivated to do well in school.  My sister and I ended up in the same physiology class one year and took turns getting the highest grades in the class.  I still say my dissections looked better than hers.  I enjoyed school but have to admit that by the end of my senior year I was burned to the socket and didn’t care if I ever saw the inside of a college.  So I decided to take some time off.
            For a shot time I worked in a printing office, then moved on to an electronics firm and finally ended up handling government property for Honeywell Marine Systems Center. The things they did were pretty hush-hush, and I had to be cleared by the government to work there.  More than a few eyebrows in the neighborhood went up when the F.B.I. started going door to door questioning everyone about me.  Once again I was famous among my friends.  None of them had fingerprints at the F.B.I.
            I was still dithering around in my mind about going back to college, when fate intervened.  One night at a birthday party for one of my co-workers, I was introduced to a young man named Doug Venema.  We hit it off from the first, and I realized that the career I really wanted was marriage and a family.  We were married that same year.
            Our first child, Gregory Allen, was born in Edmonds on October 28, 1969.  He weighed nearly ten pounds, and my mother had to make a fast dash to the store for a larger set of baby clothes, since the newborn set I’d brought to the hospital wouldn’t even go over his head.  I read him his first Dr Seuss book when he was just a week old, and eventually we worked our way up to (you guessed it), The Dragon of the Blue Land.
            When Greg was about two, Doug was hired by a record distribution company.  His company wanted us in Oregon, so we packed up and moved to Eugene.  We loved Oregon.  I’d always wanted to live out in the country and have a few acres.  Mother and daddy also fell I love with this area when they visited and decided here was where they wanted to retire.  They bought an old farm house on twenty acres in Creswell, and we moved in to take care of it for them until they could wrap things up at home.  When they finally retired and move, we bout a house with five acres just a short walk down the road.  We gardened and raised chickens and Hereford cattle, and I canned everything that couldn’t move fast enough to get out of my way.  Doug even
 
bought a few hives and we dabbled in bees for a while.  We learned a lot of new things and enjoyed every minute of our self-sufficient lifestyle.
            We had planned on a larger family, but Greg was six years old and starting first grade, and we’d nearly resigned ourselves to being a family of three when we got a wonderful surprise.  I was expecting number two.  Laina Marie was born on January 22, 1976.  She wasn’t nearly as big as her brother had been, but she was really in a hurry, and I barely made it to the hospital in time.  It had been so long between babies, that I practically had to relearn everything I knew.  Soon I was rinsing diaperlike an old pro.
            Doug was changing jobs about this time, and his new firm required him to travel often.  Sometimes he would be a week at a time. Taking care of five acres and livestock was just too much for one person, so we bought a beautiful, five acre, wooded parcel four miles further down the road and built a big, new four bedroom house.  We were doing a lot of work on the house ourselves, and I remember being nine months pregnant and nearly too big to see the molding I was trying to stain. Stephanie Lynn was born February 10, 1979, and insisted on setting a family record, weighing in at nearly a whopping eleven pounds.  We moved into our new house when she was three months old, and she often complains that there’s not one picture of her before that time.  I tell her it’s because my carpenter’s thumb was too tired to press the camera button.  Eighteen years later, we’re still living in that same house. We’ve pretty well given up gardening because we’re massively outnumbered by the deer.  We still keep chickens, though. I have devoted core of egg buyers who hope I won’t ever go out of business.
            When Greg was nineteen, he decided he wanted to serve a mission for the church.  He sent his papers into Salt Lake, and pretty soon we had word back that he was being sent to Japan, Okayama Mission.  He was ecstatic.  It was exactly what he was hoping for. It was exactly what he was hoping for.  So that spring we took him to Provo, Utah and saw him safely into the mission home.  We kissed him good-bye and left with a several other watery-eyed parents, know this would be the last time we’d see him for a year and a half.  It was a funny kind of feeling – the sadness of separation combined with intense pride, knowing that our son was willing to give that much time out of his life to serve the Lord.  A year and half later when we picked him up at the airport, he spoke Japanese like a native, he had holes in the soles of both shoes and the worst haircut I’d ever seen on a human head.  He still says it was the best experience of his life.
            My hip began to be troublesome when I was in my thirties.  The doctors told me years agon that eventually something would have to be done about it.  I’d use a cane off and on for several years because my hip was becoming so painful and unstable.  I endured it as long as I could, but finally it became necessary to have a total hip replacement.  I was 42 at the time.  Mot artificial hip patients are in their seventies, and the appliance is glued in.  These hips aren’t usually required to last thirty-five to forty years, like mine would have to.  Since I was so young, the doctors used a relatively new type of hip designed so that the bone can actually grow into the appliance.  The hope is that this type of hip will last indefinitely.  I’m currently taking part in an ongoing study of this type of hip.  So far, after eight years, it’s just as good as the day the put it in.
            When Greg returned from his mission, he attended Ricks college then spent one semester abroad, studying at BYU Jerusalem.  After returning home, he announces his engagement to a young lady he’d met a Ricks, Bonnie Wilson.  They were married December of 1992 and now have two little girls, Alexis Jewel and Amanda Lynn.  Greg got his degree in Philosophy and became a full time high school seminary teacher.  They live in Rexburg, Idaho.
            Laina married her high school sweetheart, Marc Benhoff, in November 1993.  Laina followed in my footsteps and chose the career of wife and mother and is enjoying every minute of it.  They have a little boy, Marcus Aeron, and a little girl, Morgan Briane.  Laina and Marc live close by and we get to see them and the grandkids quite often.
(From Powers Family Book compiled by Georgia Powers Jennings)