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-                JANE JENNINGS
-.            Author-Nettie Jennings
                       Monroe
 .................................   .........I...........I.......  .   ......
............
    Jane Jennings was the daughter of John and Ann
MacIntyre Jennings, and the third child of a family of
twelve children. They lived on a farm about two miles
from the village of Monroe, Wisconsin.
    Jane's mother often said "Jane was once a little girl
but never a child". She never romped and played as the
other children did.
    At the age of five Jane assumed responsibilities and
duties in caring for the children younger than herself,
she was her mother's constant helper. She was the leader
of the family.
    At the age of sixteen she taught in country schools,
she was a great reader and constantly improving her-
self; she never read cheap literature, the best to be had
was her choice and in this way perfected her own English
which was faultless.
    Courage, charity and self-sacrifice were her greatest
characteristics with innate refinement that gave her re-
tiring nature a manner which appeared unresponsive and
cold. It was difficult to understand why her thoughts
were always for others and never for herself.
    In 1864 there were thousands of wounded and sick
soldiers lying in Armory Square hospital, Washington,
D. C., one of these soldiers was her brother, Dudley.
Jane made up her mind that her brother and other
wounded soldiers needed her help in nursing them, she
had had experience in nursing members of her family.
    Her preparations were few, she put her wearing ap-
parel in an old valise and started for Washington. It
meant something in those days to take such a trip and
especially by one who had not been a hundred miles from
home.
     She took sufficient lunch to last her to Washington,
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