This past week, a wonderful southern humorist, Jeanne Robertson, died just two months after her husband passed away. She was in her seventies but still going on speaking tours. In fact, she had a full schedule planned for the coming months. One of them was in my hometown Albany, GA. I don't live there now and would not have seen her in person, but I feel I know this woman who was Miss North Carolina. She was six feet two inches tall, the tallest person to ever enter the Miss America Contest. She was nineteen when she was voted Miss Congeniality in 1963.
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During the past year, like millions of others, I discovered Jeanne on YouTube, and thanks to her I have laughed more than I have in years. She is southern and talks with a southern accent, an accent I have heard all my life from educated people. She went to school at Auburn University in Alabama, but she and her husband Jerry were supporters of Elon University in North Carolina.
I have grieved over the loss of this delightful woman who packed auditoriums with her clean humor. She never used profanity or filthy language. To me, that shows her talent. I once heard Chris Rock say that when he felt his audience not responding to his comedy, all he had to do was curse and everyone laughed. I don't enjoy most of the comics today because they rely on gimmicks and mean-spirited jokes to get laughs. Jeanne Robertson did not do that.
I grew up in a family of storytellers. My father was great and Uncle Jimmy was outstanding. Like Bill Cosby and others of his era, Jeanne used facial expressions, body language, and pure energy to connect with her wide audience. She didn't throw out four-letter words or shock people with her behavior. She took simple actions or words from people she met and people in her family to form stories that I relate to and see in my mind. I laugh out loud. I have found that I can go to bed at night and put on her YouTube videos and watch one after the other, even those I have seen already, and forget the troubles of the day.
Jeanne said her goal was to find humor in everyday things and she encouraged those of us who watched her to look for the funny stories or funny things that happened in our own lives. She said she was not a comic, but a humourist. She was a speaker. She didn't perform in Comedy Clubs. She was paid to speak at conventions and large meetings all over this country. She was an attractive woman even as she aged and her health began to fail. In 2020, she had to stop touring because of COVID and began a show from her back porch. In those shows, her fans interacted and some of the characters in her stories were guests.
Gay and Stu and I are huge fans of Jeanne Robertson and I am so happy that her stories will continue to be with us online. I plan to purchase one of her CDs or an audiobook.
