Jeannette Marie Santen Vardiman, R.N., 1942-Present
Illinois, Colorado, California, Washington
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Photos:
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Content:
Age:
Occupation: Psychiatric Nurse, R.N.
State: Illinois, Colorado, California, Washington
# of Children: 4
See narrative below:
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Links:
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Fairmont City, Illinois born 30 September 1942
Photo taken at 5 months
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Jeannette being held by her mother, Anna Santen
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Jeannette on photographer's horse
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Jeannette 8th grade
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1959 - Jeannette received an accordion from her brother, Lester, who bought it in Italy while stationed there during Korean War
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1960 Jeannette's High School
Graduation
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Jeannette with basketball court at Jewish Hospital
Girls only played half court then.
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Nov. 1962
Larry & Jeannette Dating
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Jeannette with beehive hairdo dating Larry Vardiman
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Jeannette with mom, Anna Santen at front porch of home in Fairmont City, IL
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Jeannette's Graduation from Jewish Hospital
in 1963 with R.N. Degree with Larry Vardiman
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Jeannette Santen, R.N. at Cardinal Glennon
Children's Hospital
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Newspaper Wedding Announcement
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6 June 1965 Wedding
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Jeannette's Mother and Brother and Larry's Parents
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Larry's Grandparents, Carters and Mollie Vardiman
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Larry, USAF, Jeannette, Anna Santen,
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Larry into photography, Jeannette modeling for him
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Dating, Engagement & Wedding (1962-1965)
In April 1962, Larry's
Sophomore year of college (Missouri School of Mines in Rolla), Larry attended the Southern Baptist convention that is held every year. He worked in the kitchen to help pay his way to the conference. That year it was at the Lake of the Ozarks in Southwestern Missouri. The camp was held on one side of Lake Windemere.
Jeannette Santen went to the same conference. She was a student nurse at Jewish hospital in St. Louis and was also active in the Baptist Student Union. Larry and Jeannette ended up sitting next to each other in service and sharing a hymnal. Larry remembers Jeannette coming by the kitchen to say goodbye where he was working to help pay his way to the conference.
Larry called Jeannette and asked her out on a date. She couldn't remember who he was but she agreed. When he drove up to her mother's house on a motorcycle and wearing a beard Jeannette remembers thinking "Oh no, it's the Physics guy!" She wasn't very good at math. They still had a mutual attraction though and they began long distance dating for the next three years (1962-1965). They mainly saw each other in the summer and on holidays. The rest of the time they wrote letters.
They also attended each other's school functions such as Christmas parties and Baptist Student Union parties.
They were married 5 June 1965 in a Baptist church in East St. Louis. Neither one attended there but Jeannette liked the church for a wedding. After they returned from their honeymoon Larry continued his last summer of undergraduate classes at Rolla. He received his best grades after they were married then any time before. They lived in a rented upstairs apartment of an old ladies house that Larry had been renting her downstairs apartment previously with three of his buddies. The upstairs apartment was only available during the summer so they had to move in the fall.
Larry always wanted to be a college professor but he was not as satisfied with Physics as he originally thought and wasn't sure what he wanted to pursue immediately so after Larry graduated with his B.S. in Physics at the end of the summer in 1965 he decided to join the Air Force. He had always wanted to travel. It was the middle of the Vietnam war and there was a waiting list for Officer training school so he took some Master level courses for one semester during which time he taught Physics to undergraduates. They lived in a downstairs apartment near the campus and were still active with BSU parties. Jeannette worked at Phelps County Retirement Center as a nurse.
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Larry graduating from Airforce Officer Training School
May 1966
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Military Housing Oct 1967 Scott Air Force Base, IL expecting first child
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Larry & Jeannette Vardiman family in Dec.
1969
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U.S. Air Force (1966-1970)
In February 1966 Larry entered the Air Force's Officer Training School, which took three months, 6 weeks for basic training and 6 weeks of advanced training. Jeannette moved back home with her mother in Fairmont City, Illinois where she worked at Christian Welfare hospital in East St. Louis. Larry went to Officer’s Training School in San Antonio, Texas. The Air Force recruiter sent Larry and about 30 other guys via train. About 5 of the guys were going to officer school and were given Pullman cars to sleep in while the other 25 guys who were enlisting had to sleep sitting up in the chairs. So there was already class discrimination even before school. Larry graduated in May 1966 as a Second Lieutenant. His parents and Jeannette came down for the graduation. "It was a great time. By that time I had been trained so stiffly I kept calling your mother "Sir" and I was saluting everything except the fireplugs. They kind of get you drilled." (Larry Vardiman, Family Tape #3A)
Larry had signed up for a four-year commitment and the Air Force decided because of his Physics background to make him into a weatherman. They sent him to school for one year at St. Louis University. It was only ten miles across the river from Jeannette's mom's house and about 20 miles from Larry's family in Pacific. Larry took a couple extra classes over and above what the Air Force required in order to obtain a second Bachelors degree in meteorology. They rented an apartment in St. Louis just off of South Grand Avenue. It was a one-bedroom apartment with a swimming pool. Jeannette worked at the Catholic Children's hospital, Cardinal Glennon. After Larry's one year of school was over they thought they were going to be assigned to Washington D.C. but at the last minute the orders were changed to Scott
Air force Base which was again close to both their parents. "I joined the Air Force to see the world and got assigned 20 miles from home." (Larry Vardiman, Family Tape #3A) They again made some lifelong friends while stationed at Scott
Air force Base.
The reason Larry was assigned to Scott Air base was because “they needed someone in the Aerospace Modification Division with Cloud Physics Application Research. There were a group of men who helped design fog dispersal systems. “It was really a neat assignment. One I really enjoy thinking back about today.” (Larry Vardiman, Tape 3A)
In the winter of 1968
into 1969 Larry was assigned temporary duty for six months to Travis
Air base in California to head up the division for cloud dispersal
on the runway in order to let the airplanes take off and land during
foggy conditions. They designed a system with a big archer blower
that blew salt in the air to try to take out water and reduce clouds
in the air to leave a big hole for airplanes which was also used in
Spokane, WA. |
Fort Collins, CO - Larry at Colorado State University
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Oldest grandson visiting Fort Collins house
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4 August 1972
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Graduate School in Fort Collins, CO (1970-1974)
After he finished his military service Larry became a graduate student at Colorado State University.
“We moved to Fort Collins, Colorado in June 1970 and rented a house at 501 Columbia Street." Fort Collins is a flat area at the base of the Rocky Mountains and smells like cows!
The Rocky Mountains are on the West side of Colorado and the East side of Colorado is flat plans. Horse tooth Reservoir is the main view from Fort Collins.
Larry had two week reserve duty once a year for four years.
Larry graduated with his PhD in Atmospheric Science and started working with the Bureau of Reclamation in Denver. He had seen a beautiful green valley in the mountains when flying in an airplane one time. When Larry and Jeannette checked it out they discovered Evergreen, Colorado. It is located in the mountains about 30 minutes from Denver with gorgeous green pine trees and Blue Spruce. This small country town has a lake that freezes over in the winter and is used for ice-skating.
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Moved from Fort Collins to Evergreen, CO 1970
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House in Evergreen, CO
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Evergreen Guest House
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View from road in front of house in Evergreen, CO
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Evergreen Lake
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Downtown Evergreen, CO
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Evergreen, CO (1974-1977)
In November 1974 we moved to Evergreen, Colorado where Larry and
Jeannette purchased their first house. "As a family we went ice-skating on the lake in the winter, and walked down the road from our house to a great hill for sledding! When
"Grandma Lou", Louise Carter Vardiman, visited she would go for walks with us and point out all the beautiful flowers and trees and tell us all their names.
The Colorado State flower, the Columbine and the Indian Paintbrush were prevalent in our area. We had a choke cherry bush in our back yard and we made homemade jam. That was delicious!
The chokecherries were extremely sour though and would make your lips pucker if you ate them straight off the bush!
We had one acre of fenced
land, which had many pine trees when we arrived. Unfortunately some beetles
infected most of the trees and Larry had to cut a lot of them down by the time we
left.
There was
an old outhouse on the property that had old newspaper cartoons covering the
inside walls. It was kind of fun to be busy playing in the backyard and use
that facility instead of going back into the house.
We also had
a separate one-room guesthouse on one side of the property that was attached to
the garage. It had a bed and a porta-potty. The house
itself was a one story, 3 bedroom, 1 bath log home. The front door opened into
the living room, which had an orange fireplace and an orange shag carpet. To the left were three stairs
that went up into the kitchen. The laundry room and back door were off the
kitchen. At the other end of the kitchen was a bedroom and one had to go
through his room to get to the bathroom which was on the other side of the wall
from the kitchen. On the other side of the house to the right of the living
room was a small hallway with two doors coming off of it. The bedroom
to the right had pink carpet and the windows faced the front and
side yard. The master bedroom across the hall had purple carpet and a purple headboard
and it's windows faced the backyard." (Michelle Vardiman Fansler's memories)
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September 1976
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Moving to Northern California Spring 1977
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House in Lake of the Pines, Auburn, CA
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Lake of the Pines, CA
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Larry Vardiman Family 1979 at Combie Bible Church
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Family Photo in 1982 in Northern California
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Auburn, CA (1977-1982)
Larry received a promotion with the Bureau of Reclamation. He became the Director for a cloud seeding project in Northern California to help end a drought out there.
Larry and Jeannette sold their house in Evergreen for a small profit and bought a house in a fenced community with a guard gate called Lake of the Pines, 30 minutes north of Auburn, California. |
1982 Moved to San Diego
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1984 House in Santee (San Diego County East)
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1986 Family Photo in La Jolla, CA
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San Diego, CA (1982-2006)
Larry moved his family
to San Diego County California in order to become a college
professor at Christian Heritage College
(now called San Diego Christian) in El Cajon, California.
He taught upper division math courses (advanced calculus) and
science courses (physics and occasionally physical science courses).
He became Academic Dean from 1987-1989.
During the summers he
worked for Institute for Creation
Research (ICR) to teach and write science articles in his
specialty of atmospheric science. In 1989 he transferred to
ICR full-time. From 1997-2005 he coordinated six
scientists and one theologian as administrator for the eight-year
research project called RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the
Earth). Results revealed scientific evidence of a young Earth
around 6-10,000 years old based on helium concentrations in rocks,
radiohalo diffusion documenting accelerated nuclear decay, and the
fact that coal and diamonds still contain carbon-14. From 2004-2006 he acted as Chief Operating
Officer for ICR. |
Written by Michelle Vardiman Fansler
compiled from interviews of Louise Carter Vardiman Robinson and Larry
Vardiman's Glimpses of my childhood cassette tapes and
personal interviews.
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