Lessons of Life and Love

It’s been forty-six years, but I can still feel the shock and disbelief I experienced at hearing the news.  My sister called to tell me she was listening to the radio and heard that there had been a tragic accident at St. Bonaventure University in New York:  a college student had been shot the previous evening while jogging along the river on campus.  Her name was Mary Jean White.

I knew Mary Jean before she was born.  Her mother Jill and I attended the Academy of St. Aloysius and rode the Boulevard bus daily to and from school together.  Our friendship continued after graduation, and we went to Friday night mixers at St. Peter’s College.  At one of the events, she met Jim, a tall, dark, handsome and charming engineering student.  The attraction turned into an affectionate relationship, and in September of 1960, I was a bridesmaid at their wedding.  To this day, Jill credits me for the match—but it was truly made in heaven.

Just before Christmas that year, while I was on Broadway (Bayonne’s retail district), I ran into Jim shopping alone.  He said Jill was not feeling well—she was experiencing the early discomforts of pregnancy (nausea, fatigue, etc.).  I was sorry to hear of her malaise, but delighted at the wonderful news.

Their daughter was born on August 15^th, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and they named her Mary Jean.  She was a beautiful baby with dark hair and big brown eyes, favoring her father rather than her blue eyed, blond mother.   Our son, Edward, Jr., had been born two weeks earlier, so the two babies became playmates.

A year or so later, Jim accepted a job with the State of New Jersey in Trenton, necessitating the family’s relocation.  They purchased a house in Mercerville, a distance of fifty-five miles from Bayonne.  We made frequent trips to visit them in what was then the “boonies,” never imagining that we would join them in the suburbs a few years later when we bought a home in East Windsor, just outside Princeton.  Now we were only a few miles and minutes apart.  By this time we had added a daughter to our family, and Jill and Jim had added two sons, then two more in close succession.

Mary Jean continued to grow into a bright and beautiful young lady and was a big help to her mother with her four brothers.  When another child was born in 1975, Mary Jean accused her father of teasing her when he told her she had a baby sister, but was overjoyed at the news.  The two girls were referred to as “the book ends of the family” with four boys between them.

Our children reconnected in high school as they all attended Notre Dame in Lawrenceville.  Though quiet and reserved, Mary Jean was poised and popular.  In addition to her academic achievements, she displayed artistic talent and was a runner.  She also had a sense of humor, as evidenced by what she wrote in signing my son’s yearbook.

My daughter Stephanie, eighteen months younger than Mary Jean, remembers her as someone who excelled at everything she did.  At one birthday party Mary Jean was first in every game played and won all the prizes.

Both her parents were devout Catholics who lived their faith, worked in support of humanitarian and charitable causes, especially the Right to Life, and by example instilled high moral and ethical values in their children.  Jim was also very active with the Knights of Columbus, and at eighteen, Mary Jean was presented at their Debutante Cotillion.

After graduating with honors from Notre Dame, Mary Jean enrolled as a Math major at St. Bonaventure University in upstate New York and immediately  took part in collegiate activities.  As a member of the school paper (Bona Venture) staff, she contributed two articles that bore her byline.

Mary Jean was a young woman who as they say, “had it all”—intelligence, wholesome good looks, talent and personality—and the potential to make the world a better place in anything she set her mind to do; but that opportunity was denied her.

On July 3, 2000, Mary Jean was mentioned in The Trenton Times obituary of her infant niece when the family suffered a second tragedy.

                                              In Prayerful and Loving Memory of Mary Jean and Cecilia White.

I’ll Lend You A Child

I will lend you for a little time a child of mine, he said,
For you to love the while she lives, and mourn for when she’s dead.

She’ll bring her charms to gladden you, and should her stay be brief,
You’ll have her lovely memories as solace for your grief.

I cannot promise she will stay, since all from earth return;
But there are lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.

I’ve looked the wide world over in search for teachers true;
And from the throngs that crowd life’s lanes I have selected you.

Now will you give her all your love, nor think the labour vain.
Nor hate me when I come to take her home again?

I fancied that I heard them say: Dear Lord, Thy will be done!
For all the joys Thy child shall bring, the risk of grief we’ll run.

We’ll shelter her with tenderness; we’ll love her while we may;
And for happiness we’ve known, forever grateful stay.

But should the angels call for her much sooner than we planned.
We’ll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand.

by Edgar Guest

*With thanks to Dennis Frank, Archivist, St. Bonaventure University, for the articles from Bona Venture.