1969 - J C Jennings

1969 - Meeting J C Jennings, Photographer for The Elizabethtown News

I was working for Rose’s in Elizabethtown, Kentucky and use to go early and meet a bunch of my friends at the Moo Dairy Queen for coffee. There is a print shop and dry cleaning store where the Moo Dairy Queen used to be; and a bank and post office where a vacant lot and parking lot used to be.

It was fall and I was wearing a new red sweater that I had bought at Rose’s. There was a tall, dark haired man that kept watching me while my friends and I were having coffee. Shaheen that lived across the street from me on Cherrywood came in and spoke to the man as he started to go past him. The guy grabbed Shaheen’s arm, said something to him, then came on over to our table with Shaheen.

The man’s name was James Collins Jennings; he was a photographer for the Elizabethtown News. His pictures all had “Photo by J. C. Jennings” on them and all his friends called him “Jim”. After that I started running into Jim all over town.

James Collins Jennings was born April 8, 1910 there was an age difference of sixteen years between us. ” I had always said that I would rather be an “Old man’s darling, than a young man’s slave.” Jim sure did prove that was true. I had ironed even Harold’s underwear; but Jim thought I should be on a pedestal and not do anything that would “mess me up”. There didn’t seem to be anything he wouldn’t do for me. He loved my kids and they loved him.

We had started dating; and Jim taught me how to take photographs, then how to develop them. I had a spare room that he turned into a dark room for me. I started taking pictures of newborn babies at the hospital. I sure did enjoy that.

It broke my heart when I found out that Jim hadn’t been on the up and up with me. Jim was married, granted his wife was institutionalized, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a wife; even if she was living in another county. I also found out that he had a daughter. I asked for and received a transfer from the Rose’s in Elizabethtown, Kentucky to the Rose’s in Corbin, Kentucky.

I used the money from the sell of the house on Cherrywood to purchase a house in Corbin.