Elizabeth Niccolls Jack Little
Elizabeth Jack the second daughter of EE and Lettie Jack was born in 1904 in what was the small town of Phoenix, before Arizona was a state. She and her three sisters grew up on a "ranch" adjacent to what became Grand Avenue. All the Jack girls were sent "back home" to Illinois to go to high school I guess because their parents didn't think that schools in Arizona were sufficient in the early 1900s. After high school my mother "Betty" graduated from Pomona College and also attended Colorado Women's College and Columbia Teacher's College. She taught physical education at Phoenix Union High School and during the summer breaks she loved to travel and studied dance in China and Mexico. She married Joe H. little in 1938 and of course when I was born, she had to quit teaching and so she became a homemaker and volunteer. . . always doing what she could to better our schools and our community. She did go back for a couple of years during World War II to coach the basketball team at Phoenix Union but that episode of employment outside the home too was short-lived. In addition to her civic involvements and supporting me and my sister in our school projects she loved to play bridge. She would play with anyone who could put together a foursome and she usually won! She didn't run for public office; she never received any awards and she's certainly not famous. But there wasn't a thing that Betty Little wouldn't do for me and my sister Lettie or for our friends and later for our children. She was always there generous with her time and her opinions. She was strict (which I hated at the time) and never fell for the line that "everyone's doing it". But she was fair and looking back I am grateful that she cared enough to say "no". She set a good example for her daughters and was always proud of us regardless. What more could anyone want? After our father died in 1969 mother began to travel again visiting friends and reconnecting with relatives oftentimes with our grandmother Lettie Jack who died in 1976. Mother lived life to the fullest and enjoyed it until several weeks before her death in 1984. Betsy Little Bolding August 2008