My Life History In Postcards

January 3, 2021 ~ Janet McKee ~ Leave a comment

I came across a postcard today written on August 24. No year was given. I tried to puzzle it out. It was a postcard of the Tower of London. Addressed to my mother in Hawaii. Sent from Belfast Northern Ireland. I wrote that I was then semi-immobilized. My brother and sister-in-law had phoned from Birmingham England to give me helpful advice. A cable had arrived from my friend Lucy in Washington D.C. asking whether she should fly to Belfast or Dublin the following Tuesday to meet her husband Harry. (At that point Harry was in London and their plan was to meet up in Ireland before going to Portugal and Morocco.)

I wrote “in the meantime I have lots of loving care, plenty of books, and a TV to watch the Czech crisis”.

Following the above clues, I decided the card was written in 1968, early in my first pregnancy. I had been threatened of miscarrying (a midnight trip to the Rotunda in Dublin).

It all turned out well. Lucy joined Harry in Belfast and we had a nice visit in Belfast and Enniskillen. And our first born is now age 51.

Third Thoughts

July 18, 2020 ~ Janet McKee ~ Leave a comment

This is getting serious. An autobiography in 300 words is the assignment. I met someone who said she had written 330 words and the editor returned it to her. She gave it to her daughter to eliminate her excess words. Strictly 300 words or less is the rule/assignment.

So I will start again and eliminate all those random memories!

She came into this world in the final month of 1936. Born in Boston at New England Baptist Hospital, weight 5 lbs 11 oz. Taken home to Belmont in due course. A happy loving family – mother, father, an older brother and 2 older sisters; a comfortable home in a nice neighborhood. But when she was 12 years old her childhood changed abruptly. Out of the blue, her father died – it was a coronary thrombosis.

The family dynamic was changing. The 3 older siblings were now adults and were leaving to get married. The years passed and soon Janet left too. She went to Middlebury College in Vermont, graduating in 1958. She went on to Northwestern University in Evanston Illinois to earn a Master’s Degree in Urban Geography.

Her first job as a graduate was in Seattle. But it wasn’t too long before she returned to her native Boston to work for Arthur D. Little, a prominent management consulting firm. After 3 years, she transferred to the San Francisco Office. She could’t resist the lure of the University of California in Berkeley. She enrolled in 1964 to study economics. In 1966 she went to Kenya to do the research for her PhD thesis.

Shortly after arriving in Nairobi in August 1966, she met Ian, her husband-to-be. They married in 1968. From Kenya they moved to Dublin Ireland for Ian’s job with An Foras Forbatha, The National Institute for Planning and Construction Research. Three sons were born in quick succession.

This young family proceeded to roam the world because of Ian’s work. Two years in St. Lucia in the West Indies, 2 years in Fiji in the South Pacific, 5 years in Bangladesh, 2 years in Bhutan in the Himalayas, 1 year in Ghana in West Africa, and back to Kenya in East Africa for 5 years.

These 3 sons are now all married and we are blessed with 9 grandchildren.

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That’s about 400 words and I haven’t written about my various jobs. Needs editing!

Collecting …….

January 9, 2019 ~ Janet McKee ~ Leave a comment

There used to be a BBC program called Collector’s Choice, This was broadcast in the afternoon and was one of our favorites. People collect all sorts of weird and wonderful things – from teddy bears to insects, for example. My folly is collecting postcards. Here are a few of my latest acquisitions.

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