Jenise J. Templin, age 66, of Weston, Ohio passed away peacefully on Tuesday, July 2, 2019 surrounded by her loving family.
The bone marrow disease claimed my body, but my soul and spirit are happily in Heaven with Jesus. It finally happened, being able to see Jesus face-to-face!
No one cares where you’re born, so let’s talk childhood. Dolls, dolls, dolls. Putting skates over my Buster Browns and tightening them with a key. Princess phones. Raising tadpoles from puddles into tiny frogs.
But it wasn’t until adulthood I realized the incredible value of parents who believed in education.
My mother, from Boston, and my father, from a tiny farm in Minnesota, both earned bachelor degrees during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Mom taught art in New Hampshire, and Dad became an electrical engineer who worked for Allis-Chalmers in Wisconsin; then General Dynamics and the Atlas Missile Program in San Diego; and finally, Boeing Aircraft Company in Washington.
I was proud of both of them, especially my mother who earned a degree and had a career when it was not common for women to even attend college.
During our years in San Diego I went to our church’s elementary school which established a multi-layer foundation in my life: The value of personal faith and studying the Bible, doing my best in my studies, and the joy of journalism when I was editor of the school’s first newspaper in sixth grade.
Wanting us to continue attending a Christian school, my parents sent my sister Delaine and me to one which required riding four long hours a day on the city bus system. It was not unusual for us to catch the first bus at 6 a.m. to be at school at 8 a.m., then home at 8 p.m. following after-school sports. Ha! Imagine safety issues doing something like that today.
I figured with skills in journalism that would be God’s will for my life as a career, but found out by college number three that it was teaching instead. During five years in Christian colleges I soaked up every biblical studies and theology class I could, then (with the Lord’s help) used my teaching degree to establish three one-room elementary schools for churches in California, Nebraska, and Ohio, two of which are still flourishing 40 years later. The happiest years were in Redding, CA, with grades 1-5 in a single classroom. Loved the church, the parents, and the kids, and made some amazing lifelong friends.
After living in 10 cities and seven states, I found a home to love being in Ohio. And after all those dolls in childhood, God blessed me as a mother with Jordan, Eden, Jared, and Arielle, whom I was able to homeschool over a period of 20 years.
In 2016, Eden gave me the joy of my life, my granddaughter, Lilith, with red hair and blue eyes. New identity: Snoopy Nana!
LOOKING BACK ~ What a ride! I loved my childhood. In high school I studied both French and Russian which I used all through life, sewed my own clothes, plus cooked international gourmet meals for my family. I had the joy of a second career, writing for the Sentinel-Tribune for 24 years and earning five state awards; was the first journalist inducted into the American Legion Buckeye Boys State Hall of Fame; fulfilled a lifelong dream to attend seminary for a master’s degree before I had to quit because of the bone marrow disease; loved my dachshunds and raised tiny runt pigs and orphaned raccoon babies; spent many years opening our home to international students at BGSU from at least 10 countries; and finally, wrote and self-published a book weaving the four Gospel accounts of Jesus’ Resurrection into one narrative called “Second Earthquake”.
Some of life’s regrets: Hmmm. The house was always a mess. I loved languages, but never learned much Arabic which was on my list. Wanted to be a clown for use in children’s ministry, but couldn’t learn how to make balloon animals, juggle, or do ventriloquism. Couldn’t play piano or organ with any skill, even after 10 years of lessons.
Besides my kids and Lilith, I leave behind many amazing friends; plus Pootie, Shadow, Cleopatra and Imhotep; my therapy spider, Fluffy; three grand-dogs, Nora, Fiona, and Trixie; a grand-hedgehog, Rikko; and the last love of my life, Alexander Skarsgard.
Barndt Funeral Home in Wayne is handling the details. I’ve requested to be buried in a Snoopy tee shirt and in a pine casket, on which Fluffy will sit, along with his own therapy spider, Mr. Bones.
Friends will be received from 9:00-10:00 AM on Saturday, July 6, 2019 at the Bowling Green Alliance Church (Napoleon Road), where a Celebration of Life will be held at 10 AM led by Arielle, my mortician daughter. A private burial will follow at Otsego Cemetery where God gave me a plot that overlooks the maple trees I loved to see in dazzling fall colors.
Please, NO flowers! They whither. If you feel led to make a memorial which will be an eternal blessing, please give it to the JESUS Film Project, Mission 865, 100 Lake Hart Drive, Orlando, FL 32832, which continues to translate the film into more languages around the world to reach the unsaved, or the radio ministry which guided my life, Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80995.
“No guilt in life,
no fear in death,
this is the power of Christ in me.
