"Jenny in her Wheelchair
Surrounded by Angels"
Painting by Judy Joy Jones
'JENNY STUDYING BE A DOCTOR & RUNNING
FOR MISS AMERICA PARALYZED FROM DIVING ACCIDENT'
by Judy Joy Jones
Running for Miss America and studying to be a doctor, at the tender age of 18, Jenny dove into a shallow lake and broke her neck and from that moment on her young life changed forever.
Jenny's severe spinal cord injury left her unable to move any part of her body except for her fingertips. She attended the most advanced rehabilitation center in the country who taught her how to function as a paraplegic including training her attendants.
Jenny had extremely supportive parents who helped her complete college while living alone in her own apartment. Her attendants had to tie Jenny into bed before they left for the night to keep her severe spasms from throwing her on the floor.
She was an intensely independent and motivated young woman. When most people would have given up, Jenny smiled and kept going full speed ahead from the confines of her wheelchair. She made new realistic goals and worked hard to obtain them.
Of course her dream of running for Miss America was history, but her brilliant mind enabled her to obtain her masters degree in vocational rehabilitation. Jenny used her mouth to hold pencils to operate her computer.
And getting her driver's license to be able to drive her own van was another dream Jenny never accomplished due to her violent spasms. But she continued to have experimental surgeries, in the hopes of controlling the spasms which unfortunately did not work.
I lived close to Jenny and secured a job through the college to be one of her attendants to help support my budding art career! We became close friends and she was a major mentor and guide in my life. I grew in leaps and bounds mentally and spiritually around Jenny.
I would load Jenny and her wheelchair into the back of her van and off we would go! One time we went to a Hollywood producers house where I, with Jenny's support, pitched my movie script proposal to him.
Another time we attended an art show in La Jolla, California of Francoise Gilot who was once the mistress of the famous painter Picasso. Dr. Jonas Salk, who discovered the polio vaccine was Francoise's husband at the time and I was thrilled to have had the opportunity to meet both of them. Her paintings looked exactly like Picasso's!
Jenny helped me (or tried to help me as I am something of a rebel) with one of my medical inventions and continued to be a critical guide in my life, pushing me to go beyond my fears of getting my art in the world. At that time, I was unaware that female painters were still 'on the back of the bus' and that I would have to work a trillion times harder then I had realized to get my art out. I have and still am!
Through her forty operations, never did Jenny’s beautiful eyes stop twinkling and her amazing sense of humor kept all of her attendants, family and friends in complete awe of her.
I do not believe anyone ever heard Jenny complain. She talked to her family over the phone nightly and I am certain their support gave her the added strength necessary to keep going beyond obstacles most people could never have endured.
One night, two men broke into her apartment. Jenny's attendant had already tied her to her bed to control her spasms before leaving for the night. Jenny was totally alone and saw the men coming towards her but had absolutely no way to escape. At that exact moment, her two cockatiels started squawking so loudly, they scared off the assailants!
Never did I hear Jenny angry, even when I was driving her in her van and turned a corner too fast, tipping her over in her wheelchair. Her twinkling eyes poured loving acceptance straight into my heart.
She was annoyed when one of her attendants stole her van but even then Jenny's keen intelligence kept her on the path of teaching instead of blaming and the attendant continued to work for her long after the incident.
Jenny made her transition at 38 leaving behind a woman with a tremendous will
to become all she was ever meant to be in spite of obstacles that might stop most people from reaching for their star.
How many people were fortunate enough to have crossed the path of this most remarkable young and beautiful woman will never be known but because Jenny graced this earth, our lives were touched by an angel that changed each of us for the better forever.
Beautiful Jenny; Angel of Wisdom, Thank-You!
Judy Joy Jones
(This is an updated previously published article. I hope you enjoy the beautiful essence of "Jenny"!)
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If she had only movement in her fingertips, I would say she was quadriplegic (four limbs) or tetraplegia rather than paraplegic. I've known several wonderful people as badly injured as her from diving in shallow water. To think that at seven, before I could swim, I found diving off the 2 foot end of the pool by way of becoming, eventually, during my college swimming class at 18, a real swimmer on top of the water instead of under it ;-) Something I did very well after my paralysis.
Of those quads I've known, they all had that indomitable Jenny spirit to overcome and move forward. Some achieving high acclaim and achievement like my friend Lex Frieden, who helped write the ADA language for George Bush. After paralyzed arms and hands, I finished my junior and senior year staying in a room in my design instructor's house and either walking or riding my younger sister's midsized bicycle to campus and driving an unmodified 1957 DeSoto. I soon graduated to cooking and cleaning my own apartment, alone… But always welcoming roommates to chair the rent and duties.
In the next school, 30 miles away, there was a twin, like me about my age, who had a diving accident at 19. He became president of his college class. His family owned a racetrack, a car dealership and other businesses. He was very influential in Wisconsin advocacy for the disabled. Unfortunately, like Jenny, he had many operations. He died a millionaire at 29, unmarried, staying with his family. I met his twin brother later, restoring and selling classic cars like Rolls-Royces he brought from England to our hometown as a stockbroker. Later, when I was in Atlanta, I learned that he was selling his $500,000 mansion. My twin brother and I toured the place with his son. It had a 16 car garage with every space filled with exotic and racecars.
I feel bad the doctors experimented on Jenny trying to relieve her spasms. Fortunately, I didn't request or have any surgeries until I had two hernias repaired in 1982 and 85. I quit driving an unmodified 1973 Monte Carlo after 20 years and 500,000 miles in 1995, only to be selected to be one of the first to drive a 1998 Windstar that I had to buy with my credit card, with all of the high-tech modifications paid for by a drunk drivers fine fund in the state of Texas. I drove until 2017, another 165,000 miles, most of the time alone to and from work and other activities. Makes me feel bad that Jenny didn't get her wish to drive.
Another good friend, John Bob Pruitt, was a master of the mouth stick. He had a master's degree and was director of The Star of Hope's, brand-new women's shelter here in Houston until he and his lawyer wife, with two beautiful children started a attendant business I believe he called Helping Angels. Unfortunately, he got pneumonia, lost his voice for three months, his wife divorced him and his business failed. Fortunately, he had a very supportive family who probably took care of him until he died young in 2011.
In the last few years, my spasms have become violent to the point of nearly throwing me out of bed like you described for Jenny. Strangely, when my partner removes dead skin from under my toenails that keep trying to become ingrown, they subside and I can get a good nights' sleep… For now.
Sorry for being so long-winded. But your story reminded me how important attendants are for those of us unable to do for ourselves who rely on these angels, like you, to make our lives whole and more independent, again.
Some of my friends who had angels like you…
https://ronhullauthor.com/streams/Disabled-March-3-14-03.m4v
Ron