How did you get Jillfr?

Blog 1

Where in the word did Jillfr come from? So growing up my parents always had my sisters and my initials on their license plates. My mom drove the car that had my sisters DAF20 and my dad drove the car that had mine JRF19.  You also should understand that I grew up for the most part in a very small town. In this small town my father was the superintendent of the school that I had to go to from second grade through high school. When we first moved there I did not realize how awful being the superintendent’s daughter was, but quickly found out my first day of second grade when a girl came skipping up to me at recess and said, “ Oh so you are the superintendent’s daughter.”  I guess you could say I was pretty easy to spot since not many new people moved into our school. The rest of my class of 42 seemed to all have been born there so I stood out.  Not only was I the superintendent’s daughter but they all said I had a Chicago accent.

I lived in Naperville and St. Charles before we moved to small town USA.  Anyway back to the license plates, I once had a genius in high school ask me if my dad’s license plate meant that when I turned 19 I got to have his car..  This boy often would ask me stupid questions like if my dad knew what snow was and did he know it was snowing outside. So my answer to him about the license plate was “Why yes it does because my parents love me way more than my sister so they are going to make her wait an entire year longer than me before they give her my mom’s car.”  He actually believed me and my parents thought it was funny.  I just said to my dad if you just change your license plate then that is one less thing I have to deal with 

My sister is 4 years older than me and when she started driving and needed a car my parents bought her one and then for a while we shared a car..  I don’t remember what the license plate was on any of the cars we shared. They were not special. My 4th year in college I was going to need a car on campus to get to my different teaching assignments.  One weekend when my parents came to visit me they surprised me with a car.  My dad laughed and said well I knew how much you loved us having our license plates with your initials so I ordered you special plates for your first car you don’t have to share with your sister. I was so excited. He then said, “ I didn’t totally think about it when I was writing it down for you.  That is how I got my new nickname JILLFR.  When he went to get the plates he thought it would be fun to have Jill my first name on there and then my first two letters of my last name. My maiden name was French. Put all that together and you ge JILLFR. My college roommate and friends thought it was fabulously funny!  They enjoyed the rides that they could get in the Jillfr mobile but now calling me Jillfr was a common thing. To this day some of my friends from ISU and Gamma Phi Circus will still call me Jillfr even after I have been married for over 20 years.  

As far as nicknames go I could have been stuck with a lot worse of one. So glad that my name was Jill French and since my dad wasn’t thinking when he did it I did not get stuck with something obscene on my license plate. Now it is just a funny thing that happened which gave my friends something new to call me instead of just Jill which by the way my mom picked because while teaching kindergarten she had never had a Jill!  As teachers we all know how difficult it is to make sure we don’t name our own children after THAT ONE STUDENT! My mom said she and my dad had  always liked the name Jill Renee and their friend several of which were also in education either hadn’t had a Jill or couldn’t think of a bad one. The other good thing about getting my nickname was for the first time in college I met another Jill who was also in Gamma Phi Circus with me and not only was her name Jill but her middle name was Renee. Now someone could say Jillfr and we wouldn’t get confused who should look.