About JSQ Foundation
About Jennifer
Jennifer Lee Stowers
May 16, 1980 – May 21, 2003
Jennifer
Lee Stowers was the only child of Joseph and Ellen Stowers of Derry, NH and the
fiancée of Douglas Quintal, a scholar-in-residence at Emerson College in
Boston, MA. Jennifer loved to
travel to broaden her world. In
1997 she accompanied her mother to England, France, and Italy. In 1998 she and four of her friends traveled across the
United States and back in a VW bus. Jennifer
was an excellent student. She was a
graduate of Pinkerton Academy in Derry, class of 1998, and Wheelock College,
class of 2002, in Boston.
After
college, Jennifer was employed by the Boston Public School System and was
teaching third grade at the Blackstone Elementary School in the South End of
Boston. Jennifer was also working
with the literacy program for grades K through 3.
She had been appointed to a permanent position during her first year, a
remarkable accomplishment as such an appointment usually takes three years.
Jennifer
was an accomplished musician, writer, dancer, artist and a gifted teacher.
She was also a social activist and was often teased by her father for her
vision, as she defined it - “I’m saving the world, one child at a time.”
Jennifer was a survivor of the Station Nightclub fire in Warwick Rhode
Island in February of 2003, only to die three months later, five days after her
twenty-third birthday and just six weeks short of her wedding that was planned
for the Fourth of July, 2003. The
stars that burn the brightest have the shortest lives.
There
is so much pain and so little time.
Use this time wisely-
Find joy where others find sorrow.
Find hope where others find fear.
Find love where others find disillusionment.
Find peace amidst wars.
I am able to look at my life from a safe and distant place.
I am happy.
I am wiser for the pain.
I am full of love.
I am free.
-
Jennifer Lee Stowers
Spring 2003