I have the privilege of being Emily's mother. Her dad, Wayne or as many of you know him, Potsy, always said he wanted to have a baby girl. He wanted me to dress her up so he could put her in his pickup truck and drive her around town and show her off. And that's exactly what happened!
If you know Jane then you know Emily as a child. Full of laughter and playfulness. Always putting on a show. Cartwheeling across the soccer field. Kind, caring, the peacemaker and nurturer for our family. A born organizer and planner. She loved to play games - especially Trivial Pursuit.
Emily's brother, Matthew, was her hero when they were kids. She thought he hung the moon. And as they grew older her admiration for him grew too. He's not here today, but he asked us to share these memories with you:
Emily is my sister, and we have millions of memories from our childhood spent living across the hall from each other and sharing a bathroom.
I remember Christmas Eve - we'd put our sleeping bags on the floor in my room and try to stay awake to listen for reindeer on the roof. And then one of us would wake the other and Emily would always be the one to go wake up Mom and Dad. It was probably 4 or 5 in the morning, but we were ready to go!
Harry and the Hendersons was one of our favorite movies when we were kids. We always wanted Mom to rent it for us when we went to Blockbuster. I told Emily that Bigfoot lived in our basement. So she'd never go down there by herself. To this day she still wasn't quite sure if it was safe.
Emily loved mustard. She put it on everything. She even dipped grapes in mustard.
I remember our magic shows. She was the best assistant. Mom and Dad called her my "lovely assistant". She knew all my secret tricks. She would probably have made a pretty good magician herself. We had the fake thumb, the disappearing salt shaker, card tricks, and of course the disappearing assistant. All two of our tickets were sold out at every show.
I remember watching Emily in musical shows and plays at Younger Generation Players. The kids all wore makeup - even the guys. And they had a great time together. I would get to go backstage with them after the performance while everyone got back into their street clothes. I was always struck by how happy they were. Everyone was smiling, telling each other what a good job they had done. She brought that same feeling into everything she was involved with - Girl Scouts, show choir, cheerleading, school newspaper - joyfulness and making sure the other guy knew he was appreciated and valued.
Emily's childhood was full of creativity, happiness, and dolls - lots and lots of dolls. And from the earliest time I can remember Emily wanted a red-headed daughter named Jane!