A Lifetime, A Legacy: Sealed With a Kiss, Jeanne Sykes and Her Legacy of Love
Jeanne Sykes’ class adviser photo, 1962
Much like her signature lipstick kisses sent via greeting cards to family members and dear friends, Jeanne Sykes’ streak of love touched many lives.
The Avalon resident died last Oct. 25 at age 89.
Jeanne first arrived on Seven Mile Beach at the age of 15 to work as a waitress at the Princeton Hotel in the 1940s. She profoundly affected lifeguard Jack Sykes’ life after they met at a dance in the Avalon Theatre on Avalon Pier. The Roxborough, Pa., native would one day become Jack’s wife. Jack and Jeanne studied at Penn State University until Jack left to serve as a U.S. Marine in World War II.
The couple settled in Cape May County in 1949.
The Sykes family grew to include five children: David, Susan, Jack, Steve and Leslie. Eventually, 13 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren adorned the family tree.
Their mother “amazed” them in many ways, Jeanne’s sons Jack and Steve Sykes say.
Steve notes that their mom was in her early 40s when her cherished husband Jack died in 1970. The children ranged in age from 9 to 21 at the time. “Mom kept on going and raised us,” says Steve. “Not only that, she worked full-time as a teacher.” At their home, Jeanne’s children’s friends were always welcome and often invited to stay for dinner. Plus, their mother made it a point to attend her children’s sporting events, Jack adds.
Sadness knocked on the Sykes’ door again when David passed away in 1989. Steve and Jack both visibly cringe at the memory of losing their sibling. “But Mom kept on going after David died,” Steve muses. “She kept on going.”
Jack recalls his amazement one day as a high-schooler upon learning that his mother was bilingual. After Jack’s fit of frustration in trying to translate and read the novel “Don Quixote,” Jeanne grabbed the book and took over. “Mom translated it immediately,” Jack says.
“I never knew Mom spoke Spanish!”
Jeanne not only taught English during her 42 years as an educator, she introduced Spanish to the curriculum at Middle Township High School, where she worked for 37 years. She also was the force behind the creation of the school’s annual Language Fair.
As a teacher, “Mrs. Sykes” had many monikers, Steve notes. With her expertise in Spanish, Jeanne was known as “Senora Sykes.” Other people referred to their mother as “Sergeant Sykes.” In her younger years, some dubbed Jeanne “Sexy Sykes!” says Jack.
“Sergeant” Sykes’ students might have been surprised to learn of her struggles with grading their school work. “Mom agonized over giving students their grades,” Jack says. “She pushed hard as a teacher, but her former students say they learned.”
Son Steve knows this side of his mother firsthand. “I had mom as a teacher for two years of Spanish,” he says. “My own mother flunked me, my first and only F!”
Furthermore, Steve recalls another tellingly tough-love incident. He was goofing off with two guys in class one day much to his teacher’s/mother’s dismay. Jeanne had enough of their antics. “Mom said, ‘I can’t hit you. And, I can’t hit you. But I can hit you.’ ” Then she gave Steve a quick whack, he says. When Steve responded by being flippant, Jeanne threatened him with no dinner that night. Matters settled for the moment. Still, Steve was so upset by this episode that he telephoned Jack and asked him to come home from college to mediate, which Jack did. “Mom said something about [something called] nepotism,” Steve said to his brother.
Words mattered to Jeanne.
One of her favorite pastimes was completing crossword puzzles. “We were brought up on Scrabble and Monopoly,” Jack says of the games they played with their parents as children.
In choosing her own words, “Mom never cursed or said negative things about others,” Steve recalls. Jeanne also avidly applied the written word to countless pieces of correspondence – letters, thank-you notes, Christmas cards, birthday cards, special-occasion cards and more – that she wrote to family members, friends, former students and others. Some were signed with that earlier-mentioned lipstick kiss. Others included supportive quotes.
Jack described one set of correspondence between Jeanne and a beloved former student. These letters revealed how much his mother had impacted that woman’s life. As a teen, the pupil faced personal challenges that would have destroyed her if it wasn’t for her teacher, she wrote. Jeanne was like a mother, a grandmother and friend to the high-schooler. When faced with decisions, the young woman said she asked herself, “What would Mrs. Sykes do?” Jeanne’s protégé took that line of questioning quite literally by studying and becoming a teacher, too.
Such testimonies to their mother’s goodness became gifts to her children in the end.
Jeanne’s final years brought challenges that she and her loved ones faced with grace. Jeanne died of the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s crept into her life some nine years before her death. The family kept Jeanne in her Avalon home for as long as possible. During her final days at the Brookdale Senior Living center, staffers and caregivers described their mother as “spunky” and lovingly dubbed her “Mama Jeanne,” her sons say.
“Jeanne was one of the happy [as opposed to angry] Alzheimer’s patients,” Pastor David Montanye says of the First United Methodist Church’s longtime, active member. “Her funeral service was wonderful, warm and hilarious because of family members’ and friends’ memories of Jeanne. In one anecdote, church member Lynn Schwartz explained how Jeanne performed an animated rap version of a traditional Bible study song during a Vacation Bible School program that they orchestrated.
“Mom loved her church; she enjoyed it even toward the end,” Steve says. “Church was like a family to her, too.” Jack notes how his mother always loved to sing and continued to know most of the words to church hymns despite the Alzheimer’s disease. Before and after the disease affected Jeanne, she could be counted on to belt out the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
As the Alzheimer’s progressed, “music uplifted Mom,” Jack says. Singing along to “On the Way to Cape May” could be helpful in turning around a bad day, he adds.
With family members’ help, Jeanne continued to engage in her favorite pastimes – gardening, cheering on her many grandchildren at their sporting events and frequenting yard sales – whenever she was able. As usual, Jeanne did so cheerfully.
Says Steve: “You know those signs that say ‘Live, Laugh, Love’? That’s my mother!”
