The River's Bend - 9781884820991

The River's Bend is the journey of a small town Wisconsin girl who reads her way through her bedridden childhood illness during the Depression; gets “discovered” on the train to California while visiting the man she loves; detours to post-war New York where she becomes a successful model; rubs shoulders with the rich, famous and political including JFK; marries and becomes a typical 1950s housewife; moves to the suburbs to raise her children in the safety of Cold-War suburbia, and comes full circle back to Mayville, Wisconsin where today she runs a charming Bed & Breakfast. Hers is a story of relationships: her close and loving bonds with her grandfather, mother and brother; her lifelong love for her Mayville sweetheart; her deep friendship with model Gloria Emerson, her sidekick in the New York social scene who eventually becomes a war correspondent and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War; her relationship with Jack Kennedy fresh off the PT boat and a political neophyte; her husband, her children, her grandchildren. With an underlying sense of humor, Jayne shares intimate memories of a life that spans major world upheavals, powerful underlying social forces, and navigates through her own personal journey. It is a story that ultimately we all relate to: love found, love lost and love found again.