- Date Of Death: February 26, 2018
- State: Idaho
Jennie Michaelson Spidell
On February 26, 2018 Jennie LaRue Michaelson Spidell returned home to her Heavenly Father.
Jennie was born on February 1, 1920 to John Albert Michaelson and Nora Marie Peterson at the family home in St. Charles, Idaho; the fifth of eight children. She grew up during the Great Depression in a two-room log house with no electricity and no indoor plumbing.
Jennie began her education in St. Charles. She graduated in 1939 from Fielding High School in Paris, Idaho; the first to do so in her family. She continued her education in Long Beach, California where she studied music at a Junior College.
Jennie was eight years old when she first began taking piano lessons from her cousin, Mignon Michaelson; but her love for music began as a toddler when her father taught her chords on the piano. That love continued throughout her life. Piano lessons in those days were hard to come by, but Jennie was determined to learn to play. She would weed the teacher’s garden all morning long just to pay for one lesson. At the age of thirteen she played in her first dance band with her brother, Alton.
