Until my pea-brain finally grasped the situation with Gaynelle, I thought Jill was my oldest sister. Growing up, we got along pretty good. She is probably the smartest member of the family. A voracious reader and a pretty good judge of quality music - just don't ask her to recite the lyrics. She and Ann turned me on to rock and roll music when I was young. Her favorite band for a while was Herman's Hermits, and like a lot of other young girls at the time, she had a crush on Peter Noone. But, she also liked the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, among others. When I was six or seven, she bought me a 45 of Simon and Garfunkel's "At the Zoo"/"59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)", which I still have. I also have a couple of her 45s she left behind when she got married. I hope she doesn't want them back.
I remember Jill and Ann were both were lifeguards. They took their training at the old Edgewater Hotel pool in Biloxi; it's since become a part of the mall. I'm not sure where she worked as a lifeguard, I want to say it was the Markham Hotel pool because we used to go down there all the time to swim, but I'm not really sure.
I recall her having to use her training one time. I was about 12 and the family had gone to Flint Creek Water Park. We were swimming when some woman started screaming. Her son had been floating on a raft and had disappeared. Everyone started searching the lake for the boy. Some man found the boy and started walking to shore with him when Chuck ran up and snatched the boy out of his arms and ran as fast as he could to shore. They laid him out on the ground and Jill started mouth-to-mouth on him. She kept it up until the ambulance arrived. I believe we later learned that the boy died.
When I was older and had my learner's permit, she let me drive her Cougar, which was a big thrill for me because all I'd had to drive was mom's 67 Chevy station wagon, not exactly as cool as a Cougar. My first time behind the wheel, I accidentally peeled out. I was used to the wagon, which had a straight six and the acceleration of a turtle. So here I am in a smaller car with a big V-8 under the hood and I pushed the accelerator nearly to the floor, like I had to do in the wagon, dust and rocks went flying everywhere and I scared the hell out of both of us! Surprisingly, she didn't get too upset about the incident, but that's her style.
She got her first real job working at City Hall for Commissioner Charlie Walker, who happened to be our cousin. I remember one of the first things she did was buy herself and Ann contact lenses. Up until then, they'd both been wearing those horrible cat-eye glasses that were so popular in the 60s. I remember she paid $100.00 a pair for them.