By MONICA DRAKE -
monica.drake@oakpress.com; Twitter: @monica_adele
The Oakland Press/VAUGHN GURGANIAN Jeanette Skenandore (left) sits with her daughter, Marion, Morway. Morway and her friends hope they’ll be able to replace some of the Green Bay Packers items Skenandore lost a few years ago in her apartment due to bed bugs.
Although Jeanette Skenandore, 83, lives in “Lions territory,” she still proclaims she is a fan of the Green Bay Packers — last year’s Super Bowl winner.
Skenandore lost almost all of the Green Bay memorabilia she collected during 20 years when her Auburn Hills apartment became infested with bed bugs.
The bed bugs embedded into her $800 Green Bay chair, couch, sheets, comforter, pillows, rug and almost every other area of her home.
She was forced to move out of the apartment into her daughter Marion Morway’s Pontiac home.
Bed bugs are parasites that feed on humans, and after biting a human once, they can live up to 18 months without feeding.
With tears in her eyes, Skenandore, a mother of 10 children, grandmother of 19, great-grandmother of 23 and great-great grandmother of one, described when she realized her possessions were gone.
“I was in the hospital getting my pacemaker put in. When I came home, my daughter stopped me at my apartment and said, ‘Mom, I have to tell you something. Don’t sit down.’ And I asked why? She told me I had bed bugs. My granddaughters found it when they went to clean up my apartment,” said Skenandore. “I’d never seen them before in my life. I took my dark green sheets off, and these yellow things are running around.”
Pontiac resident Evelyn Williams, a nurse who works in home care service for Meadow Creek Village Apartments, and Skenandore’s daughter Marion Morway are working to replenish Skenandore’s collection and send Skenandore to a Packers game to meet the players, her biggest dream before she dies. But they need the community’s help.
Morway said she hopes something can be done before God takes her mom home. Skenandore has been in and out of the hospital. The last time she was in the hospital was two weeks ago, which Williams joked was because the Packers were ousted from the playoffs.
Morway said, “She had a really, really bad cold she couldn’t get rid of. Her blood pressure was down, and her sugar was down.” Her body temperature dramatically dropped. Continued...
Williams said Skenandore has had a hard life, losing her daughter at six to leukemia, and these recent events have only made her more depressed. “We just wanted to do something to make her smile,” said Williams. “I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
Williams’ husband Monte joked, “She adopted the players as her children. When they lose, she has a fit.
“Her apartment was a shrine. There wasn’t anything that didn’t have Green Bay on it except for her food. The reason why we’re so gung ho with this is because she’s in her 80s now. She’s still cheering like she’s 18. I’ve never seen a person like this before.”
Skenandore became a hard-core Packers fan after she lived in Wisconsin from 1959 to 1972. Her favorite players are former quarterback Brett Favre and current linebacker Clay Matthews.
After Packers’ Director of Public Affairs Aaron Popkey heard about Skenandore’s story, he said, “It’s very heartening to the Packers to have support for the team from all over the country.”
“Our fans often describe the team as America’s team, and we’re the only team that is owned by the fans. We’re owned by our shareholders, and we’re in the middle of our fifth stock offering, instead of being owned by an owner. The Lions, for instance, are owned by (William Clay) Ford … I think a lot of people identify fondly with the notion of having a team that doesn’t have an owner,” he said.
Popkey encouraged Skenandore’s family and friends to send letters to the community outreach department with their request, telling her story, so the department can “recognize a special fan.”
Skenandore said she wants the Packers to know how big of a fan she is.
“Could they send this old lady some tickets?”
FYI: Anyone who could help Pontiac resident Jeanette Skenandore, 83, replenish her Green Bay Packers’ collection or send her to a football game next season, call her daughter Marion Morway at 248-722-2839. To write a letter to the Green Bay Packers about Skenandore, send it to Green Bay Packers Continued...
c/o Community Outreach Department, 1265 Lombardi Ave., Green Bay, WI 54304.
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Grandmother loses her Green Bay Packers possessions to bed bugs WITH VIDEO
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