Joseph Rogers Humsey

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Jay

Yes, it's Jay and Winibee -- yet another of the photos people sent me from that day in July 1996 when Jackie's girls took her ashes out into the Chesapeake.
You can see that Jay has his mother's eyes. RayBans.

We saw a lot of Jay when we were living in Iowa. When we first moved there Jay was still in highschool in Mount Pleasant, fifty miles south of Iowa City. And then he spent years at the UI -- first as an undergraduate and then as a law and MBA student.

With Dave, Christmas break 1982:

Would you like to send Jay an ?

After collecting all those degrees, Jay moved up to Saint Paul in the mideighties to work for West Publishing. And met a girl named Maura Bakken -- a lovely irish rose springing out of a family famous for its athletes. (Maura's father was norwegian, and her mother, Maureen, was irish.) A woman so easygoing and with such a peaceful heart that she was able even to calm the frenzied Jay. Sometimes, at least.
Jay and Maura got married at the end of May, 1992. I arrived back from Santa Cruz in time to drive with Joel up to Saint Paul for the wedding, and Joey flew out from New York.
Joey sat at the table with us at the reception. "No use letting this go to waste," he said as he tossed back another cupful of the white wine.
"Why is Joey drinking so much?", Joel asked.
Jay's marriage was just beginning. Joey's was coming to an end.

His father's eyes?

Jay has always been extraordinarily affectionate, and after the wedding he and Maura wanted children more than anything. (See Jay's poem "Still Life.") They felt blessed when Ian showed up in April 1995 and again blessed when Maggie -- Margaret Elizabeth, if you want to be formal -- tumbled down from heaven, or wherever it was, three years later.

I finally met these kids -- and saw Winibee, Jay, and Maura for the first time since the wedding -- when I stopped by Saint Paul on my way back from the east coast in July, 1999. Here are Jay and I in Winibee's kitchen. Tiny invisible Greyhounds, from my twentyseven hours on the bus, are still circling around my head.

Jay and Tom, 8 July 1999.

Tom, Jay, kids.

Jay and I holding his kids still so Winibee can take a dignified formal portrait of the four of us.

Maggie is a little flower.

Ian and Maggie.

Tom in the Children's Museum.

While I was visiting, Jay took us all to the Saint Paul Children's Museum. Here I am, a beneficent presence hovering over all, at the child-sized anthill, thinking about the mysteries of life and wishing I too could be a child-sized ant.
To the left below is Maggie in the Habitot's "lily pond." She just finished laying that egg.
Below right, Ian and his pal TR.

Maggie in Children's Museum.

Ian and friend in Children's Museum.

[Nota bene: This page, like all the others in this site, is in progress. Please let me know if you find anything false, misleading, offensive, or i intrusive to your privacy. Let me know too if there's a photo or something in the text that should be removed or something that should be added. I have not set up this site primarily for my own sake but for my family and friends -- and I welcome all corrections, additions, and suggestions about how to improve it!]

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