Jeannine Wade

[Oral history collected by Frederic Grevin, long-time friend]

Jeannine Wade, who died on Friday, 9 June 2023, was born on 9 March 1924, in Shanghai, China. She was the daughter of Henry Thomas William Wade and Susann Wade (formerly Haury). Her father was a veteran of World War I (he served in the British army) and her mother, born a French citizen, was a nurse who met Henry Wade in hospital when he was recovering from wounds. Henry Wade was a well-established architect in Shanghai.

Jeannine grew up in Shanghai, in a comfortable environment: she and her older brother Maurice each had a personal servant who, Jeannine told me, would pick up her handkerchief when she dropped it.

After the war started in Europe, Mr. Wade sent Jeannine and her mother back to the UK for safety. When the Pacific war started Mr. Wade was put into a Japanese internment camp for civilians. He was never heard from again.

Jeannine’s older brother Maurice served in the British army during World War II.

Because Mrs. Wade had been a French citizen, she rallied to General de Gaulle’s Free French organisation and, in turn, was told she could offer her daughter Jeannine an officer’s commission in the Free French. Jeannine turned it down and enlisted in the Royal Navy’s Womens Royal Naval Service (WRNS, nicknamed WRENS). She served initially at the Royal Navy’s wartime base at Scapa Flow (in the Orkney Islands, North of Scotland), as an aircraft mechanic. After a few years at Scapa Flow, Jeannine was transferred to another Royal Navy base in Northeastern Scotland.

I have no information on the first ten years after the war, but Jeannine eventually moved to Paris (in the early to mid-1950s?), to join her mother Susann. In Paris, she worked as office manager and bookkeeper for the Paris branch of a large American law firm, Cleary, Gottlieb, Friendly, & Cox. My mother, Claire Grevin, worked as a secretary at the same firm and that is how our family became acquainted with Jeannine.

Jeannine eventually went to work for Caterpillar Inc. an American manufacturer of construction equipment, at its facilities in Grenoble, France.

In the 1960s, Jeannine moved to the United States, where she worked at other American law firms and for a resort in the American Virgin Islands.

Both in France and the US, Jeannine (like my parents) liked parties and nightlife. In Paris, the entire Cleary, Gottlieb office would go out to cabarets and clubs, and organised office parties (including an infamous canoeing party on the Marne river, east of Paris, during which several canoes overturned). In New York, she had parties in her various Brooklyn apartments or at my parents’ house in Rye, NY.

During the 1970s, Jeannine worked as an IT consultant to a number of law firms in New York City, helping them install computer systems. In the 1980s, Jeannine’s mother Susann joined Jeannine in Brooklyn. At that time, Jeannine studied for and obtained a Real Estate Broker’s license, and worked in that profession until she retired around 2009.

Jeannine came to love dogs and became a dog rescuer. No dog was too damaged for Jeannine to adopt and care for: at one time, she adopted a chihuahua that had been so abused it bit her constantly. She refused to have this dog put down and cared for him until the last day of his life. All of the dog owners in her Brooklyn neighbourhood knew and respected her.

In 2013, Jeannine suffered a severe concussion and had to move to a nursing home in Brooklyn, where died on 9 June.

A service for Jeannine will be held Saturday, July 1, 2023 from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM at Joseph G. Duffy, 255 Ninth Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Following the service will be a committal service at 10:30 AM at Green-Wood Cemetery, 500 25th St, Brooklyn, NY 11232.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.josephgduffy.com for the Wade family.