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- Jeanette Lee Clabo was born at home, which is no longer standing, in the Shady Grove community in Sevier County Tennessee.
Following a serious illness of her mother and the premature death of her father, Jeanette, the third eldest of four children, was taken in by the Ed Shields family in an effort to provide neighborly help during those perilous times. Jeanette so captured the hearts of the Shields that she remained as one of the family into her adult years.
Jeanette tells the story of her experience as a child with the family mule named 'Bob'. Seems Bob swished his tail in Jeanette's face and to defend herself she grabbed the tail, whereupon Bob kicked back and hit Jeanette square in the nose. Bloody and knocked out, the family feared she had been killed. On the way to the doctor, with blood gushing from her face, Jeanette became semi-conscious and overheard the family discussing her death. With a lot of family love and belief in God, Jeanette recovered.
Following a heavy rain in the mountains, a flooded Bird's Creek washed a footbridge away thus blocking Jeanette's path home. Brother Claude Shields came to her rescue with mule 'Bob'. Jeanette had the choice of drowning in the rising creek, or both riding home to safety on the back of a swimming Bob.
For several summers Jeanette waited tables at the New Riverside Hotel in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The summer of 1948 was memorable since she waited table for a college man and his parents who were visiting the hotel from Chicago, Illinois. This meeting started a two-year courtship, mostly by mail, and ended in marriage on August 25, 1950 at the First Baptist Church of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Thus her career began in raising three fine sons in Illinois, Robert Shields, John Ridenour, and David Lynn. In 1993 she returned to Tennessee with her husband to enjoy their retirement home in Sevier County looking out at Shields Mountain.
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1927 -
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