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Jackie Joyner-Kersee: Heptathlon Heroine
| Article
# : |
14740 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1988 |
2,434 Words |
| Author
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Bob Phillips
Bob Phillips is a contributing editor for Scholastic
Publications in New York. |
Only the strong survive in the concrete wasteland of East St. Louis, Illinois, where the disadvantaged prey upon each other; where the sale of drugs perpetuates a vicious, never-ending cycle of despair. Dreams are snuffed out in such a lurid landscape with stunningly brutal speed.
It was into this world that Jacqueline Joyner was born on March 3, 1962. Her parents, Mary Gaines and Alfred Joyner, had exchanged vows at the ages of sixteen and fourteen, respectively. By the time she was nineteen, Mary had already given birth to two children—Al Jr., and Jackie (named by her grandmother after Jacqueline Kennedy). Two more daughters, Angela and Deborah, would soon follow.
Despite their dismal habitat, the Joyners were determined to crate an environment that would allow the next generation to escape such surroundings. Toward that end, Mary toiled as a nurse's assistant at nearby St. Mary's Hospital. Al Sr., worked a series of construction jobs, finally finding permanent employment as a railroad switch operator in Springfield, Illinois, two hours upstate. But for all their efforts, the Joyners were forced to accept the reality that lay beyond their control when at age eleven, Jackie witnessed a fatal shooting in front of their Pigott Avenue residence.
Perhaps because her own innocence was lost at such a tender age, Mary Joyner was determined to protect her eldest daughter from felling victim to the "babies having babies" syndrome that has robbed generations of inner-city youths of their futures. For this reason, a hard-and-fast commandment was etched in stone at the Joyner home: Jackie would not date until she reached the age of eighteen. And so
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