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Jeanette Wilkes Greenwood
b.30 Sep 1909 11 Stenton Cottages, Wishaw, Scotland
d.7 May 2001 Bradenton, Manatee, Florida, United States
Family tree▼ (edit)
m. 30 Nov 1907
(edit)
m. Jun 1931
Facts and Events
The Jeanette Wilkes Greenwood Story By her youngest son Richard Boyle I am writing or actually rewriting more than ten years after her death on the 7th of May 2001 partly from memories of stories both her and my Uncle Peter told me and partly from research into the family history when doing the family tree. I am Not an educated writer, but I will have to do until one of my more learned siblings get motivated to do better. My Grandmother Janet Wilkes was born in Holytown Lanarkshire Scotland on the 9th of April 1882 to a Blacksmith named Donald Wilkes. She was the sixth of eight children she went to school in Bothwell Lanarkshire Scotland. Then at the age of nineteen Janet gave birth to Alexander Armstrong Wilkes out of wedlock on the 25th of July 1901, Alex’s was raised by Janet’s older sister Isabella Wilkes (McCully). Janet met Robert Greenwood, marrying him on the 30th of November 1907 in Wishaw Lanarkshire Scotland a working class town just south of Glasgow. Janet worked as a farm servant as Robert worked as a coalminer, they lived in working class cottages at 11 Stenton Collages Row Wishaw. My mother was born there on the 30th of September 1909. I am not sure when but shortly after my mother was born the little family moved to Alva, 21 Duke Street into a cottage that was over 200 years old, I think they moved before she started school from what she told me. She went to a School on the Main Street of Alva a school that was still there when I visited Alva in the 1990’s. The school was just a few blocks away from where she lived. My mother Once told me of the time when her father was working in the fields she was to bring him his piece (lunch) a raw potato. She dropped the potato when she was crossing a field. It dropped into some cow's paddies. She bushed it off and gave it to her father and he never knew. My mother had to quit school at the age of nine to go to work to help the family survive. She said that she used to collect coal by the railroad to heat the cottage and to cook the meals for the family. When my mother was six years old she got a younger brother on the 19th of April 1916, they named him Peter McGregor Wilkes Greenwood. Peter was named after my Grandmother’s brother who had died in World War one in 1915. Then about three years later when my mother was ten she got a little sister that they named Mary Greenwood. My mother’s first job she got was picking strawberries she ate more than she picked. So she went on to pick potatoes and turnips. She then worked in a furniture factory finishing the furniture. She worked there a few years then went to work in a woolen mill that was just up the hill from were she lived at 21 Duke Street. She had fun talking to her friends on the steps of the mill where she and her coworkers would work six days a week, then when Sunday came along Jeanette and her friends would climb to the top of large hills near her home called Big Tory and Little Tory. There they would picnic at the top. When they were finish eating, they would slide down the hill with cardboard they had brought with them. It took an hour to climb the hills, but 15 minutes to slide down. Then walk the Glen and hills of the Ochil hills. They sometimes would go the Wallace's Monument that was only 7 miles away from Alva. Another story my mother told me was when her brother had a tapeworm, her mother got it out and put it in a large jar. Jeanette had to run to the Doctor’s with it down the streets of Alva. Neither she nor her siblings were very tall, she was all of five feet three inches tall, my Uncle Peter said he was always bothered by his shortness. When my mother was twenty years old her Aunt Lizzie (who had went to America a few months before) Sent for her and two cousins Maggie and Isa Nolan. My Grandmother wanted her to go to America so she could have a better life. She did not want to go, but she did what her mother told her to do. Aunt Lizzie sent her fifty dollars so that she wouldn’t have any trouble getting off the ship in New York City. When she arrived in New York her Aunt took the fifty dollars back. The three girls got jobs as maids to private families in Brooklyn, that is where my mother met her friend Betty who was also from Scotland. Betty Hoover was a Neighbor at Duke Street in Alva and when Betty found out that Jeanette was living in New York she looked her up. Betty ran into Jeanette while looking for her on the streets of New York. Maggie (Margaret Nolan) and Isa (Isabella Nolan) stayed just a short time before getting home sick and going back to Scotland, but my mother had met her future husband (and my father) Hugh Wallace Boyle. Wallace and Jeanette met on a blind date set up by Isa Nolan. They went to Coney Island and Wallace said, "you are mine". Wallace was a Roman Catholic. So he was much better off in America than in Scotland. At that time was hard to find a job in Scotland if you were a Irish Catholic. Jeanette married him in June of 1931 over her family objections, kind of a real life Romeo and Juliet My mother continued to work while my father got a job in the University of Columbia in New York City as a handyman. Then on August 14, 1933 my mother gave birth to my older brother Hugh Wallace Boyle Jr. after my father. They both would rather be called Wallace Boyle. The little family moved from apartment to apartment trying to get by in the great depression. A little baby girl came along on January 15, 1935 my older sister and they named her Jeanette wilkes after her my mother. She and her husband both worked hard raising their two children in New York City. Then on August 25, 1941 she gave birth to their third child me Richard Boyle. I was named after Richard Hover who was Betty's husband now. I was born in Green point Hospital in Brooklyn coming in a little over ten pounds; at least I started out big. When I was about eleven mouths old my father got a job with Republic Aviation Corporation which was making fighter planes for the Air force and the war effort for World War Two that was in full swing at the time. Republic was on Route 110 in Farmingdale Long Island so we moved to Amityville Long Island that is just south of Farmingdale. We rented a house on Park Ave in Amityville. After I was old enough for School my mother at first helped my father with his side jobs as a janitor in some law offices, Churches, Banks and in the American Legion. Then my mother got a job at the South Oaks Sanitarium in Amityville. But that job lasted only until an inmate got away from her and she got so frightened so she thought this isn’t the job for me and she quit. If my mother wanted to do some shopping in a department shore we would take the Long Island Railroad to Jamaica and shop along Jamaica Ave under the el (elevated rail line) taking the bus or trolley that ran along Jamaica Ave at the time. I would go with my parents to Broadway Shows like My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison and Wildcat with Lucille Ball who sang "Hey, Look Me over" and sang a few more songs after the show was over. Shortly after I started school which was right next to where we lived on Park Ave of course we moved in 1947 to 3 Carlton Ave Amityville in a two-story stucco house which is in southern Amityville about a block or two from the Great South Bay about a mile from the village of Amityville. We didn’t have a car at first so we walked to wherever we wanted to go, it was my older brother Wallace who was the first to buy a car. Wallace brought a 1937 ford in the year 1949 my brother was the first to learn to drive. Then my father learned to drive and 1950 my parents brought their first car a 1950 Plymouth (Black). Soon my mother learned to drive so she could drive to the market and then my mother got a job as a cook in a Restaurant called the Bayberry House in Massapequa (on Merrick Rd across from the Telephone CO.) She worked long hours in the restaurant still had time to help her my father and raise her three children. My mother with her friends at the Bayberry House would bring me to the Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Show in the 1950's where we would see the Radio City Rockettes go to Rockefeller Center see the Christmas Tree, eating in the restaurant near the ice rink. It was on one these trips that I saw my first color TV on display in Radio City Music Hall. My parents both worked hard to provide for all three of their children, but my mother never forgot the family she left behind in Scotland sending them a lot of things she thought they might be able to use. If I stop playing with something off to Scotland it would go, I didn’t learn about this until I grow up always wondering what happen to my things. I knew she sent bundles to Britain, but it wasn’t until I myself went to Scotland that my uncle and cousins told me how much she did for them. My brother Wallace Jr. got Married to Verna Lillo in June of 1954 in Saint Martin’s Roman Catholic Church it Amityville. I think my mother love her new daughter in law and her family. We would go over to Verna's parents for Thanksgiving dinner and they would come over her house where my mother would cook for them. My parent helped them buy their first house in Copiague which is just east of Amityville. My parents were very proud of both their son and his wife Verna both of who are well educated and did well for themselves. A few years later my sister Jeanette got married to Robert Rampone on the 9th of June 1956 also in Saint Martin’s Roman Catholic Church in Amityville. My parents also helped my sister with her first house in Lindenhurst which is just east of Copiague. Then as will happen came the Grandchildren first was Peter Douglas Rampone my sister’s son on the 21st of March 1957. Then a double my sister in law Verna gave birth to a daughter on the 30th of September 1958 and my sister Jeanette gave birth to a daughter on the 11th of December 1958 for her second child and then it was my brother’s turn again with his wife Verna giving birth to their son Matthew Boyle on the 29th of January 1961 and their Grandma loves all her Grandchildren. My mother became a Citizen of the United States of American in 1959 because she wanted to Visit Scotland in February of that year and she wanted to go on an American Passport. After spending a month back in Scotland she said that she didn't know how she survived 20 years in that country. They were still heating with fireplaces with firestones to heat the bed. She said your feet burned up and the rest of you froze. She brought them a Television and a Headstone for her mother's grave. She returned to Scotland a few more times between 1960 and 1982. My sister Jeanette and her husband Robert moved to Florida in 1963 to "help" his parent run a small resort on Longboat Key that was called Little Gull. My sister went down to Florida even being with child and gave birth to my parents third Granddaughter Elizabeth (Liz) Ann Rampone on the 8th of August 1963. My parents visited the often during the 1960’s for I was off to the Army so they finally had a empty nest. I their youngest son finally got married on June 21, 1969 to Adele Grace Eiermann and on December 11, 1970 Adele gave birth to another Grandson whom was named Michael John Boyle. My parents let me and my wife Adele live with them until we saved enough money to buy a house in Medford Long Island which we moved into in 1972. Adele in 1973 gave my mother another Grandson and named him Kenneth John Boyle. My parents moved to Florida in 1972 to be with their daughter Jeanette and their three grandchildren Peter, Lori and Liz. They lived on Longboat Key and got a part time job while down there cleaning apartments in one of the resorts along the beach. Then inMarch 22, 1982 my father Hugh Wallace Boyle died of colon cancer. Jeanette sold her house on Longboat Key and lived in a trailer for a short time then sold the trailer. She then went to live her daughter Jeanette. She put the down payment on a house for her and her daughter to live in. My mother started to lose her eyesight in the late 1980's and the 1990's she had Eye Degeneration. She only had peripheral vision by the late 1990's. She would get books on tape to listen to. Just before her 90th birthday she fell at a party for her and broke her hip her health went down hill until she died on May 7, 2001 at the age of 91, She is now with her husband Hugh Wallace Boyle sr. and her brother and sister Peter and Mary Greenwood Plus all her friends at the Woolen Mill. They are now in Haven talking over old times. Remembering my Mom She was a hard working woman with a no nonsense way to tell what she thought, she had a sweet tooth loved assorted Licorice, I am bias but she was a great cook she would always make me her dumpling which must have been very fating that is why it taste so good. We had a great time together and I miss her she was a great mom. She is survived by three Children, 7 Grandchildren, 9 Great-Grandchildren and so far 4 Great-Great Grandchildren. . Image Gallery
Image:1909 Birth of Jeanette Wilkes Greenwood.pdf
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