Jean Anderson doesn’t believe in do-overs.
“I don’t spend a lot of time on wishful thinking on how I should have done things differently. I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done. But I have no regrets.”
“God has a way of turning things around into something better.”
AT FIRST GLANCE it seems Anderson, 70, has lived in an act-first, think-later, manner.
She’s on her fourth marriage and has experienced poverty, physical abuse, abandonment and suffered through two alcoholic husbands.
Today, she’s in her 17th year of a blissful marriage, has no debt, is in sound relationships with her four children and her grandchildren and currently volunteers with Girls Only Club, a high school youth group in her church.
Anderson can relate with today’s youth, she said, “By being there.
“I was going to say by listening. But I don’t hear as I used to and they talk a lingo I sometimes don’t understand.”
Anderson also has a way of understanding people, because “I’ve probably been there, too.”
Anderson was born on her grandparents’ farm in Severy. The rural life always appealed to her, and when times got tough she frequently returned to her parents’ farm in Chase County. “It was a special place,” she said, recalling its bucolic setting.
Anderson was the oldest of five children and was given an inordinate amount of responsibility for their care.
“There was a lot of conflict at home,” she said. Her mother was educated with a college degree in music, while her father worked as a farmer as well as manufacturing.
“Dad wanted Mom to raise us kids as his mom did. Mom wanted Dad to be more focused on a career.”
The two separated, with Anderson’s mother moving the children to Mattfield Green where she took a job teaching music. When she learned she was pregnant with her fifth child – “finally, a son” – the couple reunited.
“But it didn’t last,” Anderson said. “Mom then took us all to Wichita and filed for divorce. She wanted Dad to change.”
Anderson can’t remember what happened to her dad during this time, “But he sent us every dime he had. Between Mom’s job and his contributions she was able to buy a house.”
“To my great shock and dismay, they remarried,” she said.
Between her role of cooking and taking care of her siblings as well as being a high-schooler, young Anderson didn’t need her parents’ drama, she said.
Her saving grace was her parents’ promise they would pay for her college education. Turns out, her father also began college, graduating the year before she did. They both majored in education.
WHEN HER CHANCE came to begin an independent life, Anderson found herself woefully unprepared.
“I was a late developer,” she said. And though she took on a lot of responsibility in domestic duties, her parents weren’t “exactly around,” to impart words of wisdom.
It was the 1960s and Wichita was in the midst of the Civil Rights movement.
In what she views now as a rebellious move, Anderson married a black.
“There was genuine love,” she said, “But both Tony and I married for reasons other than we wanted to spend our lives together.”
He, too, was rebelling against an overprotective mother “who had his life planned for him – even the girl he was to marry – and it wasn’t me.”
“There were multiple motivations for me to marry,” she said. “Many, I wasn’t even aware of at the time.”
Anderson also saw the marriage as “redemption,” perhaps of society’s ill treatment of blacks as well as what she terms her own “past sins.”
The young couple were “an anomaly for Wichita, Kansas at that time.”
When Jean became pregnant with their second child, they moved to Tony’s hometown in Pennsylvania. They had four children altogether.
Tony’s alcoholism, abusiveness and desire to live a “poetic, nomadic” life in New York City brought the marriage to an end.
Anderson found her career as a teacher and her strong faith in God her saving grace – lessons she was to learn repeatedly over the course of her life.
Marriage No. 2 didn’t fare much better. Another alcoholic – “I didn’t catch on” – who needed a mother for his two children.
The family lived primarily in Coffeyville where Anderson taught for 11 years, while her husband hauled cattle and worked in manufacturing.
Anderson says those years she lived a “dual life” of being a “proper teacher and good mother,” but also a drinking partner for her husband.
“I was living an immoral life,” she said. “I know I did not want that kind of life for my kids. I didn’t want them to know me as that kind of person,” she said. “For some reason, they all love me.”
The lifestyle took a toll.
“I hit bottom,” Anderson said. “I kept asking God to get me out of this marriage, but He kept putting a love in my heart for my husband.”
For a while her husband also took up religion, but returned to old habits after he lost a job.
ANDERSON TALKS about the experience of being “born again,” in her faith and how it allowed her to become “the person I was supposed to be. Not like I was to throw my past away, but to chart a new course.”
The transition helped her leave her husband. “God said it was time to go,” she said.
Anderson then poured her energies and heart into teaching and continued to raise her children.
A man, or even the idea of a man, was not in the picture.
It wasn’t until a Bible study on the book, “You can be the Wife of a Happy Husband,” that Anderson began to think differently. “I learned a lot of things about myself and marriage,” she said of the curriculum.
Enter Lin, husband No. 3, a successful IBM businessman, whom Anderson married in one month’s time.
“God was telling me this was the right kind of marriage,” she said. “I took every opportunity to live and grow …. I thought he was, too.”
Six years into the marriage – and numerous photo albums depicting a happy union – Anderson came home from a trip to find he had left.
“He took everything,” she said of their belongings.
The experience left Anderson “really mad at God,” she said. “But He told me he’d set me free. I didn’t want it.”
The third failed marriage left Anderson devastated. In time, she joined a divorce recovery group through which she met Steve, and yes, fell in love.
“We’ve been married 17 wonderful years that makes up for the previous 34 years of mistakes,” she said.
But it hasn’t always been easy.
Fresh out of library science school, Steve found it difficult to find a job. Anderson was also out of work, and the two “maxed out our credit cards,” finding themselves “$30,000-$40,000” in debt.
It wasn’t until Steve landed the job as librarian at Allen County Community College that they got back on track. They moved to Iola in 1998 and in time worked themselves out of debt. “We knew what to do,” Anderson said, “We just needed jobs.”
As scary as it sounds while looking back, Anderson said their predicament never overwhelmed her.
“When I see all the times God has rescued me, how can I worry?” she asked.
Since being in Iola Anderson as worked as an adult education and English as a second language instructor at ACCC as well as teaching one year at the Iola Area Community Christian School. She’s also taught computer skills for adults through an adult education program in LaHarpe.
Today, one child and grandchild are taking up root with the Andersons. “It’s nice they have a place to come,” she said of the temporary arrangement, perhaps remembering the many times she returned to her parents when life seemed unstable.
“Kids need to learn responsibility a little at a time. Let them make mistakes. But be there for them.”
