By her younger brother Richard Boyle
I believe that Jeanette was born in Brooklyn, but since our parents moved around a lot do to the Depression she might have been born in Manhattan on the 15th day of January 1935. She already had an older brother by 1 and ½ years named Hugh Wallace Boyle Jr. named after our father. Jeanette was named after our mother Jeanette Wilkes Greenwood (Boyle). Jeanette spent the first part of her childhood in Brooklyn she told me once she decided to run away, but she wasn’t allowed to cross the street so she just went around the block. Our parent would bring her and her brother to Coney Island beach which was a easy ride by subway from Brooklyn. Our parents would move about every six months for during to depression landlords work offer six months free rent for some of their apartments. They did find time to bring her to Prospect Park for a pony ride so she did have fun in Brooklyn. When she was six years old she got real lucky for she got another brother, who she could help her mother take care of like having a real live doll, I am that doll. Almost a year later our father got a job in Republic Aviation in Farmingdale Long Island making fighter planes for the Air Force for the was a war going on at the time. So we moved to Amityville which is the next town south of Farmingdale. Our parents rented a house on Park Avenue and enrolled Jeanette in the Amityville Public Schools that was only one house down from the house we were living in, but in 1947 we moved again this time our parents bought a house of their own a little farther south on Carleton Avenue. We didn’t have either a Television or a car until about 1950 so my sister and I entertain ourselves playing card games, checkers/chess or just guessing games like 21 questions where one of us would think of event or person in history and the other would have to ask up to 21 questions to guess the answer. When summer rolled around my sister and I would walk to the Amityville railroad station, take an LIRR train to the Wantagh railroad station, then a bus to Jones Beach State Park. Which is a beautiful big beach, pool and games. Jeanette graduated with the first class to graduate from what was then the new Amityville High School in 1953. Jeanette with two of her girlfriends went on a trip to Havana Cuba which was of course before the revolution. She had gone to work as a bookkeeper for an insurance company in the city (NYC) taking the LIRR from Amityville to Penn station and back. One day she took the day off and the train she would have been on had an accident. Jeanette went to work for a cement company in Amityville as a bookkeeper and payroll clerk. She said that she had to go in the back door of one of the local banks with two thugs to get the payroll and the thugs would stand behind her with their hand on their gun as she gave the company employees their pay. She soon quit that job to take a job as bookkeeper in Islip a town just east of Amityville.
Jeanette started to date a young man from Massapequa who had also graduated from Amityville High School named Bob Rampone. After dating for a while they got married on the 9th day of June in the year 1956. Then on the 21st day of March in the year 1957 Jeanette gave birth to Peter Douglas Rampone. Jeanette that the name Peter could be for either Bob’s Stepfather Peter Van Den Brande or our Uncle Peter McGregor Greenwood depending what side of her family she is talking to at the time. Then on the 11th day of December in the year 1958 she gave birth to her second child Lori Anne Rampone and moved into a new house in Lindenhurst Long Island. Even if my sister and her two children were having the good life on Long Island, Bob’s parents decided to buy a group of housekeeping Cottages on Long Boat Key on Florida’s west coast. It was called the Little Gull, Bob’s parent wanted Jeanette and Bob to go down to Florida with them so they could help run the business. So Jeanette pregnant with her third child went down to Long Boat Key Florida. Soon Jeanette gave birth to her third child and second daughter that she named Elizabeth Anne Rampone. The way it turned out Jeanette ran the business just about by herself getting customers by having brochures made up. She also got contracts to rent Televisions and Air conditioners, she had to do all the cleaning of the cottages too. The one thing I found funny about that was that when we were growing up on Long Island she would scream for me to save her from a little spider that had her trapped on the sofa and now she had to deal with the little creatures they had in Florida. Jeanette did all this plus raise three children by herself for her husband Bob got a job up in Tampa quite a few miles north of Long Boat key. Bob got involved with a coworker and Jeanette and Bob got divorced in 1980. Bob’s mother Anita and Jeanette agreed to sell the Little Gull and move to Bradenton which is just southeast of Long Boat Key. She worked for a while a real estate agent renting homes in the Bradenton area. After our father died she took good care of our mother taking her on a trip to China and buying a Senior care home. Jeanette’s oldest daughter Lori helped run the home and take care of our mother. Jeanette used some of the money from the sale of the Little Gull to buy houses for all three of her children, who stayed close to her most of their lives, only Lori wandered around the country with Jeanette’s first Granddaughter Jessica. Jeanette finally had to take care of Jessica raising her to adulthood. Jeanette’s son Peter gave her two Grandsons David and Mark Rampone and her second daughter Liz gave her two more Grandsons Andrew James (AJ) and Tyler Hershberger. All three of her children took turns taken care of her in her last years of life. Jeanette’s Granddaughter Jessica gave her three Great-grandsons Edmond, Nicolas and Joshua, Grandson AJ gave her a Great-Granddaughter Hayley Hershberger and only a month before her death her Grandson David gave her another Great-Grandson Dominic George Rampone. Jeanette Wilkes Boyle Rampone died on the 28th day of May 2016.
