Jelaire, Jelaire, Jelaire, and Jelaire

No, this post isn't about how self-absorbed I am! :)

I've had many people ask me where I got my name, Jelaire, from. Some have been people I knew, others have been complete strangers who have contacted me online. There have been several other "Jelaires" who have asked me if I knew the origin of our name. All of the ones that I've talked to could trace their story back to my grandmother, Jelaire Katherine Simpson. But they never knew the story of how the name came to be.

I wanted to dedicate this post to one of the many legacies she left behind: her name.

The First-born Daughter Chain
Here is a quick look at how the tradition got started. The name is always passed down to the firstborn daughter. Below is the list of generations of Jelaires:
Jelaire Katherine Chandler Simpson (my grandmother)
Jelaire Christine Simpson Lemmon (mother)
Jelaire Christine Lemmon Richardson (me)
Jelaire Avery Richardson (my daughter)

No Coincidence
When Avery was born, my Grandma Simpson, who was 88 years old, flew to Utah from Texas to see Avery and attend my baby shower. When she arrived, she insisted on being driven to our house 40 minutes away so that she could see Jelaire Avery, her namesake, as soon as she could.

She did not want to wait for Avery's baby shower that was going to be held over a week later. So, my parents drove her to our house where she got to hold little six-week-old Jelaire Avery. It was touching to see this amazing woman hold a fourth-generation Jelaire.

I wanted so bad for Avery to remember this moment and to know her great-grandmother, but I knew that Grandma's time on earth was short. However, I thought that I'd just see her in a week at Avery's baby shower. Much to our surprise, a few days later, Grandma had a stroke and passed away. I knew Heavenly Father's guiding influence was present in Grandma's last few days. He let her hold her great-granddaughter before having her return to Him.


The Origin of "Jelaire"
My great-great-grandfather, Hermanus Denkers, was from the Netherlands (Random side note: I didn't know this until after I received my mission call to Holland!). I'm not sure where, but he met a woman named Alice Golair Weston, who he was going to marry, but she died before that happened. I've heard from my grandmother that she died from a terrible flu epidemic, but this was after her stroke, so I'm not sure how accurate that fact is.

When he was sailing to America from Holland, he met Prina Marie Kusse, my great-great-grandmother. They married and named their daughter Alice Golair Denkers, after his former fiancee. I always thought that my great-great-grandmother must have been a very understanding person to have named their first daughter after her husband's ex-fiancee. What a gal!

Alice's sister, Kathryn Denkers Chandler, had a baby girl, and got permission from Alice to ask if she could borrow her middle name "Golair," but change the spelling to make it "more feminine." Thank goodness. I think I'd feel like a viking woman if my name today would have been "Golair."

That baby was my grandma, Jelaire Kathryn Chandler Simpson, who was the first of many Jelaires to come. Grandma told me that since she and my grandpa spent so much time in New Zealand (and in other areas of the world) for the LDS Church, they encountered many people who named their daughters after her, too.

"Your Name is Too Hard to Remember"
When I was 14, I was at a summer camp for a week when some of my friends there asked me to go by a nickname for the week -- my name was just too hard to remember. So, for that week, I went by "J." It grew on me and I considered telling everyone else from then on that I went by "J." That's when Grandma helped me see otherwise.

Grandma told me that growing up, too many people had trouble pronouncing and remembering her name, so she began to tell people to call her "Jerry." Her mother found out and wouldn't have it (one of the reasons being that it sounded too masculine), so she started going by "Jelaire" again. From this story I gleaned that her mother intended it to be a name too important and beautiful to be shortened.

Since then, every time I was on a sports team, or in a new class, and I had peers, teachers, and coaches asking me if I went by anything different than Jelaire (I can't blame them!), I easily told them no, and never again wondered if I should have gone by anything different.

Help Me Add More to the Story!
So, that's it in a nutshell. I'm hoping I got the facts right. And if anyone reads this who knows more to the story, please let me know!!