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Jean Louise Dickinson - Hess - Woehlcke

Mom was an incredible woman — born in 1928 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, to William Dickinson and Blanche Murphy. Her father worked at Allegheny building aircraft engines and even built their family home with his own hands. Her mother — my grandmother — baked bread, dinner rolls, and cherry pies that set the standard for everything I’ve tasted since. They lived a solid middle‑class life just outside Williamsport, where Mom attended Williamsport High School.

Her yearbook reads like a checklist of everything the popular kids did: Pep Club, Drama Club, Recreational Club, Bowling Team, the Birch Show Committee — and on top of all that, she served in student leadership as Treasurer, Cabinet member, and ultimately Vice President her senior year. And she was very pretty — pretty enough to catch the eye of young Tom Hess, two grades below her and already a born salesman. By March 1947, at age nineteen, she was pregnant.

So she did what most girls in that situation did: she married Tom in June 1947, right after graduation. And in the culture of the time, when your baby arrived in December, you simply called it “premature.” (And for the younger crowd reading this: birth control pills weren’t just unavailable — they were actually illegal in many states until the late 1960s. So when people say “Why didn’t she just…?” the answer is: she couldn’t. Nobody could.)

They started their life together in Williamsport, surrounded by friends and family, and welcomed their first child, Bonnie. Within months, Mom was pregnant again, and by late November she delivered the humorously named “Irish Twin,” William Curtis — two children under the age of one. He was named after his grandfathers — William (Mom’s dad) and Curtis (Dad’s dad). They called him “Curt,” except when he was in trouble, when the full name came out: “William Curtis, get in here this minute!” (yeah, that’s me)

Before their third child arrived, Dad underwent surgery to remove a non‑working kidney caused by a congenital defect. In 1950, dialysis didn’t exist, and specialists could only bypass the remaining kidney for a few days, then un‑bypass it and hope it restarted on its own. By the time Rick arrived in April 1950 and Linda in November 1952, Dad’s doctors were out of ideas. Their advice — move to “the shore,” where ocean air was thought to be therapeutic — was half science, half superstition, but it was the best they had.

And that’s how the family ended up in Cape May, New Jersey — Exit 0 on the Garden State Parkway, as far south as you can go, steps from the Atlantic Ocean and still only five hours from Williamsport. Just before the move, Mom gave real meaning to “barefoot and pregnant” when she delivered Tommy (Tom Jr.) in 1954. Shortly after, Dad headed to Cape May to find a job and a place big enough for a family of seven. She was 27, he was 25. OMG.

He found both on Washington Street — the main drag in a small, middle‑class town that would call itself “The Nation’s Oldest Seashore Resort.” In hindsight, he couldn’t have chosen a better place to raise a family. (Read More about Cape May here) Cape May in the 1950s wasn’t the $400‑a‑night B&B Victorian House museum it is today. Back then it was a quiet, slightly worn seaside town where fishermen, small business owners, and young families lived year‑round. Salt air, cheap rent, and a main street where everyone knew everyone else’s business. My teen phrase was “If I give some little old lady some nasty NJ smartass lip on one side of town, my old man would be waiting with a belt in his hand by the time I got home.” That’s just the way it was, for better or worse. Probably better.

Much more writing to come (soon)…