In the later years of her life, Elizabeth Ames Jackson, known to the Ames clan as “Aunt Betty,” was among the most beloved of all the Ames.  Her younger relatives looked upon her as the model for how the elderly should live their latter years.  She had multiple infirmities, but with her husband Norris Jackson (“Uncle Non”), she seldom missed a family wedding or an extended family member’s college graduation.  When you were with her, she made you feel there was no one else with whom she would rather be.

    She lived the major part of her life in the house she was born in, at 501 Grand Avenue, Saint Paul, which her father had built in 1886.  It was large, comfortable, old fashioned, and, in later years, in dire need of repair.  But while she lived, her warm presence there made all that hardly noticeable.  

    She was the fifth of Charles and Mary Ames’s six children, the fourth girl, with one older and one younger brother.  The latter, Ted Ames, was born on her fourth birthday, and forever after she considered him her special responsibility.  (In later life, this generated some tension between her and Ted’s spouse; this situation was looked on by other family members with some amusement.)

    After schooling through eighth grade at a St. Paul school, she spent the next four years at the Winsor School in Boston, and boarded with Mrs. Bellows, a widow, part of the extended Ames family circle.  She was already familiar with New England, having spent many family summers at Gloucester, Massachusetts and Tamworth, New Hampshire; and there were relatives in the Boston area with whom she could socialize and go to concerts and dances.

    Toward the end of World War I , in early 1918, she and her cousin Edith Winter went to Paris.  (Two older sisters had preceded her two years earlier.)  Betty served as receptionist at the American Fund for the French Wounded, of which her father was a prime mover.  The two young women kept an open house for friends and friends-of-friends, most of them on leave from the front.  Some of Betty’s friends were very special to her, especially one young soldier who died in Belgium.  In the last months of the war, Betty joined a nursing unit near the front, caring for wounded men and for French children orphaned by the war.

    Her intense experiences in France may well have been the cause of an emotional breakdown that occurred soon after her return home.  Her condition of ultra-high nervous tension was serious enough that the doctors ordered her isolated from her family for several months, so that she would have complete calm and rest.   Soon after she recovered, her spirit was again battered by the death of her father and by the revelation that a man to whom she was then briefly engaged had been married before and had children, of which Betty had been told nothing.

    Waiting for her for more than a decade was the man who was to become her husband of 68 years, Norris Jackson.  He lived across the street; she was the only romance of his life; his earliest affectionate letter to her was written nearly 15 years before, when he was only 13.  Even during her brief engagement, he kept declaring his love for her.  They were married in 1922, and had two daughters, Leila, born in 1924, and Kitty, 1925.   

    Betty and Nonnie were inveterate world travelers, both before and after World War II--several times in Europe, as well as in Japan, West Africa and Afghanistan, and countless trips within the U.S.  Whenever the family was apart--college, World War II, during their travels in  whatever continent, Betty was an inveterate letter-writer.  The Ames Family Historical Collection contains several hundred of these.    

    After World War II broke out, the house at 501 became a headquarters for the gathering and processing of equipment and supplies to be sent to England.  The Jackson, together with their next-door cousins, the Wrights, shared in caring for an 11-year-old English boy, Charles Morrison, who was part of a British program to get children away from the bombings of London and other large English cities. (He stayed four years and was a lifelong friend. The Jacksons also hosted several young relatives whose parents were displaced by the war, as well as many others who stayed for briefer times.  (Their dining room table accommodated 14.)  This activity was a natural extension of the charitable and civic work in which Betty was constantly involved before and after the war.

    Despite various physical problems, Betty’s and Non’s last years were happy ones.  In their early 90’s, they hosted a reunion of family members to celebrate the 100th birthday of  501 Grand Avenue, the house they had lived in so long.  It was attended by more than 100 people, relatives of four generations.

    Betty and Nonnie both died in 1990, within a few months of each other.  She died in the same bed she was born in and which she and Nonnie shared all those years.              

Quotes from letters to and from Elizabeth Ames Jackson

--Letters to and from her father, Charles W. Ames, during childhood and during World War I:
 
 --From her father, in Cambridge, MA, 3/26/1906 (Betty then 11): “Lieber Liesl: I have seen most of your special people--having given them your love as requested and have received affectionate messages for you in return. [He then lists eleven friends and relatives.] These are some of the people who have asked about Betty particularly, and the person who has answered and said pleasant things for her and about her is Your Loving Father.” [Sign of a kiss at the bottom.]

Betty to her father, written to him somewhere in Europe, sometime in 1905 (Betty then 9): “Dear Father, When will you be at home?.... Did you have a good time in Venice? It is a very silly question to ask because I am sure you did.... I have missed you so much, but knew all the time that you were having a beautiful time. …I must say good-bye with a great deal of love from a very loving daughter, Liesl.”
 
--Betty to her father, World War I while working in Paris for the American Fund for the French
Wounded (AFFW), 7/24/1918: “Father dear....five years ago today we sailed on the Celtic--didn’t we have a wonderful trip, unusually precious for scores of reasons...a chance to see England and France and Italy, happy and peaceful, and for the never-to-be-forgotten gloriously happy times with each other. You and Mother have certainly given your children a million reasons for thankfulness. What did we all think about during those jolly days, I wonder!
    “It really seems a different world to me now. Four years of topsy-turviness with incredible chaos. It’s almost impossible to believe. I often wonder if the whole thing won’t turn out to be a nightmare. I suppose as far as the Universe goes, it is just that, a bad dream with some purpose which at the time is incomprehensible but which must be a course of events in the Great Scheme....
“Do please take care of yourselves, all of you. I long to know how things are going with you, Father dear. It’s wonderful to think what service you are doing for the country, even if everyone doesn’t know it. I’m so proud of you, and would give anything could I do a tenth as much....
    “Oceans of love, dearest Father. I wish I had enough pep to write all that I’m aching to say.... Your devoted little daughter, Betty.”

Betty to her father, while working in Paris for the American Fund for the French Wounded (AFFW), 8/9/1918:     “Father dear, Six months ago today we sailed from New York--it seems perfect years--I can hardly believe that so much could have happened in just half a year. I don’t feel like the same person at all, and I don’t feel as though I’d told you about anything--it is so hard in letters, and there’s no time for writing, but I know that you and Mother somehow understand all that goes on. What months they have been--crossing our beloved Atlantic, which is infested with German submarines, starting in work at The Alcazar [office of the AFFW]...air raids, over forty of these, days of shelling from Big Bertha, refugees, hospital visiting, parades, helping a bit in the emergency work as aides, and friends of every kind--old and new, mostly the latter!
    “My passport has been renewed and I’m glad of it--not because I don’t love you all more than ever and long to see you--but I feel that there is such a crying need for people who are willing to work here, and not enough girls to do the work. I don’t--can’t--feel that I’m managing to do enough--does one ever?.... And curiously enough, I think that from a social standpoint, it makes a difference our being here. We’re gay, as you know, in that we see people constantly. I love it, but so do they, just because we’re plain American girls and not these French painted fools. It’s really pathetic to see how glad these nice boys are to have a chance to see and talk to girls like their friends at home...the poor things, down from the terrible Hell of the trenches, seem to get the greatest pleasure from it.... What wonderful, wonderful boys we have from America, and they are giving themselves with never a selfish thought.... Alan Winslow was like a little boy, he was so pleased over the good things they gave him to eat.... And those three all died, fighting in the air. It’s heartbreaking. But I’m so certain that there is some reason for it all that we simply must bear it. I can’t bear to think of the sorrow you have been through this past month. I send a thousand hugs and kisses, yes a thousand and more, Your Own Betty.”


Letters to and from Norris Jackson, husband of 68 years_.

 Nonnie to Betty, early spring, 1921, upon Betty’s engagement to another man, “I’m just nuts when I think of you. Really, Betty, I don’t know what to say first. I am glad, particularly at this time when you need all the sustaining you can get. You would laugh if I said I knew what it meant to you, but I’ve been near enough to be able to guess at least. And there never will be one to take your place with me. Thinking back over all our times together, it is overwhelming almost, and there is so far in my life a great fine thing of which I am immeasurably proud--it is the true friendship that we share together. …why I just love you more than ever and my happiness is increased by yours.... I am proud and thankful that you let me share it with you--the joy of it all....”

Betty, age 18,to Nonnie, 5/28/1922 (from Bala-Cynwyd PA just after a relative’s wedding): “....Life is very full of every sort of thing, isn’t it! And darling, to love each other like this with the outlook of precious times ahead is most inspiriting. I want so to make you happy and to help to make our lives reach points which are broad and real....”

Betty, age 57, to Nonnie in New York, 5/18/1951: “This delicate pink paper should be slightly perfumed, I think, but hope that you don’t mind its coming from a middle-aged old clunk instead of a starry-eyed svelte television actress, for the m.a.o.c. adores you, needs you, loves you, likes you, and misses you....”

 Letters to daughters Leila and Kitty, World War II and later.
 
To Leila, 2/15/43, parts of a long letter: “Thanks for your marvelous long letter--newsy and full of items we love to hear about. You are a good gal! We all think your marks came out very well. I didn’t expect either German or Ec[onomics] to be as good as 78 and 75.... Sorry your feet don’t seem to be perfect. It may turn out that there’s a special use for double-jointed feet in the post-war rehabilitation. Who knows?”

To daughter Kitty, age 19, at college, 1/28/1944: “I do wish that more people in the world could travel after this war, and get an idea that their own back yards are not so very large, and that they need to see other people and learn to appreciate their problems... Many people here are so free to dictate to Britain [about India], after simplifying the difficulties, and the same time ignore absolutely our failures over handling the Negro problem, poor record in Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, etc.... Certainly the world is full of knotty problems....”

To daughter Kitty, 2/8/1949: “I think you hit the nail on the head about ____.   I like him a lot myself but have had a feeling that he might not be THE ONE, after all.... I don’t worry about you and Leila as far as eventually meeting just the right ones. I do worry sometime by your feeling so hectic about it. You are not either of you old for being engaged. You are just reaching a period of more stability, better judgment, and more sense about things.... Dear me, how very odd life is, ain’t it, don’t it??!!!!!??”

To daughter Kitty, upon her (Betty’s) arrival at Karachi, Pakistan 5/16/1956: “....I never cease to be flabbergasted that one can see and enjoy such a variety in seven days and nights,...this time the completely new and horrible view of vast Egyptian and Saudi Arabian deserts, in sharp contrast to the rolling greenswards of Britain and the flat, well-cultivated Danish landscape, as well as those superb Alps--Whee! what lucky people. I can’t help pinching myself to believe it’s really Betty Ames who is having such a whirl with her old playmate Nonnie Jackson. But it is, and most grateful am I....”

To daughter Kitty, upon arrival in Kabul, Afghanistan, to visit Leila and her husband, Leon Poullada (a U.S. foreign service officer), 5/10/1956: “I had no idea that the [Poulladas’] house would be so large and spacious, and even having been told of the mountain views, I could not visualize the extent of the beauty....
The human side--political, world relations, etc.--could scare one pink.... The feeling of police state does not make me comfortable. Some friends of the Poulladas who lived across the street were given five days’ notice to leave the country,...and the Afghan household where Leila dined last year....is no long able to repeat such friendly gestures with Americans....”