Becoming Lee: a memoir
Lee Jackman describes western Pennsylvania during the uncomplicated 1940s and 1950s as the petri dish that cultivated and grew who she is today. For her first seven years, she lived in residential Duquesne, nurtured by an understanding and beloved grandmother who became her lifelong role model. At age seven, she and her family moved to Industry, Pennsylvania, where she experienced Appalachian-waif classmates, friends’ fathers with ties to the mob, and immigrant grandmothers who wore long black skirts and babushkas while shopping in the A&P; market. Stabilizing forces in her life were the constancy of family, church activities, music, and piano lessons. In seventh grade, she began writing poems and stories in a blue-lined notebook about family, classmates, and her teacher, Mrs. Ewing. One day her teacher asked her to stand and read her work to the class. Everyone listened attentively, including her Mrs. Ewing. That day she realized the power of her writing and knew she had the ability to tell a story. Her first book—Love, Lee—published in 2012, is a compilation of letters, poems, lyrics, storystreams, fables, limericks, and memorials written for family and friends over a forty-year period. A Claremont, California, resident since 1958, she lives with her husband, Duane. Four of the five children in their blended family are also Claremont residents, along with six of their eight grandchildren. Lee A. Jackman can be contacted via her Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/BecomingLee, or e-mail her at leejackman@aol.com.