Jeanette Ruth Nelson

Went there for junior high school. Then started Roosevelt for high school, but it was too crowded so went back to Von Stuben and graduated from high school there. She had to pass a swim test to graduate. HS had pool.

Rabbi's eulogy at graveside:
Jeanette Ruth Klemptner Nelson, Sheindl Rochl bat David v’Chasha, otherwise known as Safta Jeanetti to her grandchildren, was born in Chicago in 1918. Jeanette was the daughter of two successful immigrants, Dr. Deitrich Klemptner and Ann Klemptner. Jeanette is the mom of Dina Tanners and the grandmother of Timna, Avi and Nadav, and great-grandmother to Jonah, Ezekiel, and one more on the way.

Jeanette was a strong character, right from her birth, having been born in her father’s doctor’s office, on the first floor of their house, after her parents had been snowed in during a snow storm, at only 4 lbs, 12 ounces. And as the daughter of a doctor, Jeanette, often knew about the “facts of life” than her friends and played the role of teacher to her friends many questions. Jeanette was incredibly bright, and learned from everyone. I personally found it interesting learning that she would listen to her brother learning for his bar mitzvah, and tried to learn Hebrew through listening to his lessons. This desire to learn Hebrew stayed with Jeanette as she enrolled in various adult education classes to learn Hebrew later in life. Jeanette became a professional teacher, first teaching high school then elementary school, especially 1st grade, for many, many years.

Jeanette loved studying science and had hoped to become a doctor, like her father, though when it came time for her to attend college during the depression, there was no money, so Jeanette got her teaching certificate and graduated from Chicago Teacher’s College, having paid for school through receiving a piano scholarship, and then began teaching and simultaneously earned a Bachelors in Science and Education from Northwestern University. Throughout Jeanette’s life, she maintained her interest in science and in the environment.

Jeanette made her way to Seattle after WWII with her former husband Sid Nelson who was from Seattle , after having moved around the US when Sid was serving in the armed forces in WWII. The couple initially lived in Queen Anne than in Seward Park. Jeanette was a wonderful cook, particularly admired for her roasts and salads.

Jeanette had an adventuresome spirit and loved to learn – in school and continuing education, through reading (just about everything), through her interest in the outdoors, through her love of animals, especially dogs, through her season subscriptions with the theater, symphony, dance and opera, through her thirst for travel, particularly educational travel – to exotic locations. As an aside, Jeanette was a much more adventuresome traveler than me, travelling to Israel in 1967 with her mother, then to Columbia, Brazil, Peru and the Amazon in 1969, back to Israel , even trying working in the fields at her daughter’s kibbutz, Kibbutz Merom Golan and to Mexico , Scandinavia and Ecuador in the 1970s and to the far east, Japan and India in the 1980s. She had also always hoped to make it to China and Australia. Jeanette loved interacting with these other cultures, and learning about them. Jeanette’s last trips were to celebrate with her grandchildren at their accomplishments and parent’s weekend at college.

Until dementia made it impossible, Jeanette lived a very independent and active life. From the early 1950s she had her own car (though at times without brakes and needed a curb tp stop). She also took charge of her own finances and was good at saving and always provided for her daughter, making sure she did not go without music and dance lessons, camp Solomon Schechter, Hebrew school and whatever Dina wanted. And when marriage was not working out for her, in the 1960s, Jeanette navigated the challenges of getting a divorce and trying to establish independent credit for a single woman, challenging the policy of the credit card companies, who still attached a woman’s credit to her husband.

And while working and in retirement, Jeanette was active – as vp and president of a local Hadassah group, B'nai Brith Women, and League of Women voters and as a volunteer with the Pacific Science Center, ADL and the gift shop at Herzl, and as a low income tax volunteer, reading, and taking classes, picking up painting and continuing to play the piano. Even as her dementia became more advanced, Jeanette for years, retained her piano skills. Jeanette, in addition to her arts subscriptions, maintained a membership at the Pacific Science Center, always ready to take her grandchildren there.

Jeanette was someone who fully embraced life and was a life long learner. And the past decade of Jeanette’s life, allowed for a special new development in her relationship with her daughter Dina, who was extremely attentive as Jeanette moved to the Summit and eventually Kline Galland (nursing home). Jeanette was an incredibly proud mother and grandmother.