May Mann Jennings - Early Years

Early Years

May Mann was born in the Centerville section of Bayonne, New Jersey. Her parents moved to Crystal River, Florida in 1874 where her father, Austin Mann, was elected to the Florida Senate. Her mother died in 1882 when she was 9, and her father sent May and her older sister away to St. Joseph Academy in St. Augustine, Florida.

The children spent vacations with their father in Tallahassee when the Legislature was in session. May was very bright and learned everything she could about people, politics and the Capitol. She graduated valedictorian of her class in 1889. Austin Mann ran for the state House of Representatives and May assisted in the campaign, hosting teas and talking with people at rallies.

Read more about this topic:  May Mann Jennings

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:

    Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.
    Eudora Welty (b. 1909)

    Without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same. And I can no more suppose, that men were better, braver, or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago, than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better than they are now.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)