Jeannette Marie Santen Vardiman, R.N., 1942-Present

Illinois, Colorado, California, Washington

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• Facts

• Husband - Larry Vardiman

• Daughter - Michelle

• Daughter - Kelly

• Son - Daniel

• Daughter - Laura

Fairmont City, Illinois
born 30 September 1942
Photo taken at 5 months

Jeannette on
photographer's horse

Jeannette 8th grade

1960 Jeannette's High School Graduation

Jeannette with basketball court at Jewish Hospital
Girls only played half court then.

Jeannette with beehive hairdo dating Larry Vardiman

Jeannette with mom, Anna Santen at front porch of home in Fairmont City, IL

Jeannette Santen, R.N. at Cardinal Glennon
Children's Hospital

Newspaper Wedding Announcement

Jeannette's Mother and Brother and Larry's Parents

Larry's Grandparents, Carters and Mollie Vardiman

Larry into photography, Jeannette modeling for him

Dating, Engagement & Wedding (1962-1965)

In April 1962, Larry's Sophomore year of college (Missouri School of Mines in Rolla), Larry attended the Southern Baptist convention that is held every year. He worked in the kitchen to help pay his way to the conference. That year it was at the Lake of the Ozarks in Southwestern Missouri. The camp was held on one side of Lake Windemere.

Jeannette Santen went to the same conference. She was a student nurse at Jewish hospital in St. Louis and was also active in the Baptist Student Union. Larry and Jeannette ended up sitting next to each other in service and sharing a hymnal. Larry remembers Jeannette coming by the kitchen to say goodbye where he was working to help pay his way to the conference.

Larry called Jeannette and asked her out on a date. She couldn't remember who he was but she agreed. When he drove up to her mother's house on a motorcycle and wearing a beard Jeannette remembers thinking "Oh no, it's the Physics guy!" She wasn't very good at math. They still had a mutual attraction though and they began long distance dating for the next three years (1962-1965). They mainly saw each other in the summer and on holidays. The rest of the time they wrote letters. They also attended each other's school functions such as Christmas parties and Baptist Student Union parties.

They were married 5 June 1965 in a Baptist church in East St. Louis. Neither one attended there but Jeannette liked the church for a wedding. After they returned from their honeymoon Larry continued his last summer of undergraduate classes at Rolla. He received his best grades after they were married then any time before. They lived in a rented upstairs apartment of an old ladies house that Larry had been renting her downstairs apartment previously with three of his buddies. The upstairs apartment was only available during the summer so they had to move in the fall.

Larry always wanted to be a college professor but he was not as satisfied with Physics as he originally thought and wasn't sure what he wanted to pursue immediately so after Larry graduated with his B.S. in Physics at the end of the summer in 1965 he decided to join the Air Force. He had always wanted to travel. It was the middle of the Vietnam war and there was a waiting list for Officer training school so he took some Master level courses for one semester during which time he taught Physics to undergraduates. They lived in a downstairs apartment near the campus and were still active with BSU parties. Jeannette worked at Phelps County Retirement Center as a nurse.

Larry graduating from Airforce Officer Training School May 1966

Larry & Jeannette Vardiman family in Dec. 1969

U.S. Air Force (1966-1970)

In February 1966 Larry entered the Air Force's Officer Training School, which took three months, 6 weeks for basic training and 6 weeks of advanced training. Jeannette moved back home with her mother in Fairmont City, Illinois where she worked at Christian Welfare hospital in East St. Louis. Larry went to Officer’s Training School in San Antonio, Texas. The Air Force recruiter sent Larry and about 30 other guys via train. About 5 of the guys were going to officer school and were given Pullman cars to sleep in while the other 25 guys who were enlisting had to sleep sitting up in the chairs. So there was already class discrimination even before school. Larry graduated in May 1966 as a Second Lieutenant. His parents and Jeannette came down for the graduation. "It was a great time. By that time I had been trained so stiffly I kept calling your mother "Sir" and I was saluting everything except the fireplugs. They kind of get you drilled." (Larry Vardiman, Family Tape #3A)

Larry had signed up for a four-year commitment and the Air Force decided because of his Physics background to make him into a weatherman. They sent him to school for one year at St. Louis University. It was only ten miles across the river from Jeannette's mom's house and about 20 miles from Larry's family in Pacific. Larry took a couple extra classes over and above what the Air Force required in order to obtain a second Bachelors degree in meteorology. They rented an apartment in St. Louis just off of South Grand Avenue. It was a one-bedroom apartment with a swimming pool. Jeannette worked at the Catholic Children's hospital, Cardinal Glennon. After Larry's one year of school was over they thought they were going to be assigned to Washington D.C. but at the last minute the orders were changed to Scott Air force Base which was again close to both their parents. "I joined the Air Force to see the world and got assigned 20 miles from home." (Larry Vardiman, Family Tape #3A) They again made some lifelong friends while stationed at Scott Air force Base.

The reason Larry was assigned to Scott Air base was because “they needed someone in the Aerospace Modification Division with Cloud Physics Application Research. There were a group of men who helped design fog dispersal systems. “It was really a neat assignment. One I really enjoy thinking back about today.” (Larry Vardiman, Tape 3A)

In the winter of 1968 into 1969 Larry was assigned temporary duty for six months to Travis Air base in California to head up the division for cloud dispersal on the runway in order to let the airplanes take off and land during foggy conditions. They designed a system with a big archer blower that blew salt in the air to try to take out water and reduce clouds in the air to leave a big hole for airplanes which was also used in Spokane, WA.

Fort Collins, CO - Larry at Colorado State University

4 August 1972

Graduate School in Fort Collins, CO (1970-1974)

After he finished his military service Larry became a graduate student at Colorado State University. “We moved to Fort Collins, Colorado in June 1970 and rented a house at 501 Columbia Street." Fort Collins is a flat area at the base of the Rocky Mountains and smells like cows! The Rocky Mountains are on the West side of Colorado and the East side of Colorado is flat plans. Horse tooth Reservoir is the main view from Fort Collins. Larry had two week reserve duty once a year for four years.

Larry graduated with his PhD in Atmospheric Science and started working with the Bureau of Reclamation in Denver. He had seen a beautiful green valley in the mountains when flying in an airplane one time. When Larry and Jeannette checked it out they discovered Evergreen, Colorado. It is located in the mountains about 30 minutes from Denver with gorgeous green pine trees and Blue Spruce. This small country town has a lake that freezes over in the winter and is used for ice-skating.

Moved from Fort Collins to Evergreen, CO 1970

Evergreen Guest House

View from road in front of house in Evergreen, CO

Downtown Evergreen, CO

Evergreen, CO (1974-1977)

In November 1974 we moved to Evergreen, Colorado where Larry and Jeannette purchased their first house. "As a family we went ice-skating on the lake in the winter, and walked down the road from our house to a great hill for sledding! When "Grandma Lou", Louise Carter Vardiman, visited she would go for walks with us and point out all the beautiful flowers and trees and tell us all their names. The Colorado State flower, the Columbine and the Indian Paintbrush were prevalent in our area. We had a choke cherry bush in our back yard and we made homemade jam. That was delicious! The chokecherries were extremely sour though and would make your lips pucker if you ate them straight off the bush!

We had one acre of fenced land, which had many pine trees when we arrived.  Unfortunately some beetles infected most of the trees and Larry had to cut a lot of them down by the time we left. 

There was an old outhouse on the property that had old newspaper cartoons covering the inside walls.  It was kind of fun to be busy playing in the backyard and use that facility instead of going back into the house. 

We also had a separate one-room guesthouse on one side of the property that was attached to the garage. It had a bed and a porta-potty. The house itself was a one story, 3 bedroom, 1 bath log home.  The front door opened into the living room, which had an orange fireplace and an orange shag carpet.   To the left were three stairs that went up into the kitchen.  The laundry room and back door were off the kitchen.  At the other end of the kitchen was a bedroom and one had to go through his room to get to the bathroom which was on the other side of the wall from the kitchen.  On the other side of the house to the right of the living room was a small hallway with two doors coming off of it.  The bedroom to the right had pink carpet and the windows faced the front and side yard.  The master bedroom across the hall had purple carpet and a purple headboard and it's windows faced the backyard." (Michelle Vardiman Fansler's memories)

September 1976
 

House in Lake of the Pines, Auburn, CA

Lake of the Pines, CA

Family Photo in 1982 in Northern California

Auburn, CA (1977-1982)

Larry received a promotion with the Bureau of Reclamation. He became the Director for a cloud seeding project in Northern California to help end a drought out there. Larry and Jeannette sold their house in Evergreen for a small profit and bought a house in a fenced community with a guard gate called Lake of the Pines, 30 minutes north of Auburn, California.

1986 Family Photo in
La Jolla, CA

San Diego, CA (1982-2006)

Larry moved his family to San Diego County California in order to become a college professor at Christian Heritage College (now called San Diego Christian) in El Cajon, California.  He taught upper division math courses (advanced calculus) and science courses (physics and occasionally physical science courses).  He became Academic Dean from 1987-1989.

During the summers he worked for Institute for Creation Research (ICR) to teach and write science articles in his specialty of atmospheric science.  In 1989 he transferred to ICR full-time. 
From 1997-2005 he coordinated six scientists and one theologian as administrator for the eight-year research project called RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth).  Results revealed scientific evidence of a young Earth around 6-10,000 years old based on helium concentrations in rocks, radiohalo diffusion documenting accelerated nuclear decay, and the fact that coal and diamonds still contain carbon-14. From 2004-2006 he acted as Chief Operating Officer for ICR.

Written by Michelle Vardiman Fansler compiled from interviews of Louise Carter Vardiman Robinson and Larry Vardiman's Glimpses of my childhood cassette tapes and personal interviews.