Parents: Jesse Sanford & Helen von Phul

Jeanne's father, Jesse Homer Sanford (1864-1937), was originally from Vienna, OH, and the son of a coal mine owner. He had great ambitions, and had studied bridge engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, but the death of his father, N.F. Sanford, changed his plans when he inherited the Carnegie Coal Company. (His mines are listed here: http://patheoldminer.rootsweb.com/wasindexc.html ). He had four children by his wife, known as "Lizzy", but she had passed away. Jesse was now a widower with four grown children. He owned a house in Carnegie, PA, and his Carnegie Coal Co. was very successful. He was 45 years old when he met Jeanne's (future) mother, Helen. He commuted by train for business.

Jeanne's mother, Helen Mar von Phul (taken from Sir Walter Scott's "Lady Helen Mar")(1886-1978), was originally from Wyoming, OH. She was educated at the Chicago Conservatory of Music, became a piano teacher, and was living with her family in Chicago, Il. She was a sweet, gentle woman in her mid-twenties, who had brown hair, green eyes, and a charming, giddy sort-of laugh. She had been teaching at Westland in West Virginia and then at a college in Fargo, ND, which she commuted to by train.

As fate would have it, Jesse met Helen on the train, and the rest, "is history". They were married Aug. 2, 1913 and, after a honeymoon in Europe, they lived in the house of his first wife, in Carnegie, PA. Over the next few years, Jesse and Helen had three children: Helen Mar, Robert Stillman, and Jean Duff. (Born 1915, 1917, & 1919 respectively). Jesse was a charter member of the prestigious Pittsburgh's Duquesne Club, had custom-made silk shirts, owned four cars (a limousine, a car for 'the help', a car for himself, and a car for Mrs. Sanford), and they had a houseboat with Captain, docked at the Belleview Biltmore Hotel, for traveling around Florida in. Life was very comfortable until the stock market crash of 1929.