Jeannette Ten Eyck (Pallen) (Higgins) Gibson was born August 16, 1897, the only child of Van Dyke Higgins and his wife Kathryn Estella (Mann) Higgins. At her birth, Jeannette’s doctor whose name was Ten Eyck recorded her name as “Jeanette TenEyck Higgins.” As a girl Jeannette wrote that name on the back of each studio portrait photo. Years later she must have decided to drop the name Ten Eyck and use Pallen as her middle name. No one knows from where this name came.

The story is told that when Jeannette was a young girl, (circa 1909), her best friend died. (Pallen, or Pal Lynn perhaps?) This girl came from a wealthy family. She owned a beautiful ring, set with two matching diamonds. After this friend died, her parents had the diamonds removed from the ring and gave Jeannette and another girl each a diamond, as a remembrance of this bright jewel who had been died so young. Jeannette’s parents had the diamond put in a setting and Jeannette wore this ring in memory of her friend whom she missed terribly. When Jeannette’s older daughter Cathryn was sixteen, she gave the ring to her to wear. Cathryn in turn gave the ring to me, Barbara (Hocking) Eckbreth, on her sixteenth birthday, and she in turn gave it to her daughter Kelly (Eckbreth) McVey when she became sixteen. A tradition had started. The ring represents love and remembrance. It is to be passed to the oldest daughter by her mother in each generation. The diamond is an old one and not of much dollar value. It’s value is in what it represents and hopefully this love and remembrance will continue to be passed to Jeannette’s blood kin, from generation to generation for a very long time.

Jeannette was a graduate of Miss Annabelle’s Seminary. After the family farm was sold in the early 1940’s Jeannette worked as a guard at the Raritan Arsenal. Later, she went to school to become a Licensed Practical Nurse and worked in that capacity until her retirement. She died of congestive heart failure in early 1990 at age 92.