2 In Appreciation of DorothyAnne.

JESSOP’S STORY

- an ordinary life of a seventy-percenter.

An Autobiography by

Jessop Sutton

This book is dedicated to DorothyAnne, my wife of over fifty years, who has been with me, standing by me, loving me, through all the ups and downs of the life that I largely created for all of us in the Sutton family. She came into my life, loved me and married me on the 19th of January, 1957, at a time when I would have been an unlikely prospect as a husband for any woman. On our first Wedding Anniversary in January 1958,  DorothyAnne gave me a copy of “Great War Speeches” by Sir Winston Churchill. On the inside cover she had pasted a piece of paper on which she had copied out the following poem By Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise,

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life ! — and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.”

That is huge commitment which  DorothyAnne made and she has never deviated from it through all of the intervening years. She, as wife and mother, has been the proverbial wife of Proverbs 31:

“She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.”

And, indeed, I do praise her and dedicate this work to her.