Birth Locations – Page 81 – The Exasperated Historian

479) Jo Ann Jenkins

479: Jo Ann Jenkins

Former CEO of AARP

Born: 1958, Mobile, Alabama, United States of America

Jo Ann served as CEO from 2014 until 2025; she joined the company in 2010. In August 2025, she was appointed to the board of directors of AON.

Before joining AARP, she worked for the United States Government in the Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and later Agriculture Departments.

From 1994 to at least 2007 she worked for the Library of Congress moving up from a Senior Adviser to the COO.

Sources:

https://www.aarp.org/about-aarp/executive-team/info-2016/jo-ann-jenkins.html

https://www.diversitywoman.com/conference/portfolio_page/jo-ann-c-jenkins/

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aon-appoints-jo-ann-jenkins-to-board-of-directors-302520824.html

Entries Born in Cambodia

These are the entries born in the country of Cambodia or the geographic equivalent of that country.

Entries:

Khieu Ponnary, The First Woman in Cambodia to Graduate High School and Later the First Wife of Pol Pot

“In the name of a radical utopia, the Khmer Rouge regime had turned most of the people into slaves. Husbands were separated from wives, parents from children. Holidays, music, romance and entertainment were banned. Dictatorial village leaders and soldiers told the people whom to marry and how to live, and those who disobeyed were killed. Children informed on their parents; many other youngsters who did not bend to the political mania were buried alive, or tossed into the air and speared on bayonets. Some were fed to crocodiles.

Religion and prayer were outlawed. Buddhist monks were murdered and temples were razed.”

-Seth Mydans for the New York Times

478: Khieu Ponnary

Pol Pot’s First Wife

Born: 3 February 1920, Battambang Province, Cambodia

Died: 1 July 2003, Pailan Province, Cambodia

Ponnary worked in the Khmer Rouge as a revolutionary despite being the first woman in Cambodia to graduate from high school.

In the 1950’s she suffered from uterine cancer and the treatment left her unable to conceive children.

She was eight years older than her infamous husband.

Before the revolution the two of them taught a variety of subjects at high schools in Cambodia.

In 1978, Ponnary was introduced as the Mother of the Khmer Rouge Revolution—but soon after she disappeared from public view (possibly shipped off to a mental health facility in Beijing). Whatever her mental illness was—it led her to extreme paranoia and delusions about the Vietnamese.

In the last years of her life she reportedly didn’t know her ex-husband (he divorced her without her knowledge) was dead or had actually remarried and had a child with his second wife before dying.

Ponnary also didn’t remember the Khmer Rouge and all the atrocities that happened, and she didn’t know anyone around her either.

I hate to say it, but after what the Khmer did to their people, she kind of deserved it.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/03/world/khieu-ponnary-83-first-wife-of-pol-pot-cambodian-despot.html

https://english.cambodiadaily.com/news/the-story-of-khieu-ponnary-revolutionary-and-first-wife-of-pol-pot-651/

477) Jane Haining

“If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?”

477: Jane Haining

Missionary For the Church of Scotland

Born: 6 June 1897, Near Dunscore, Dumfriesshire, United Kingdom

Died: c.17 July 1944, Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Nazi Occupied Poland

Jane served in Budapest for over twelve years, becoming fluent in Hungarian while there. At one point, she was in charge of a school of over 400 Jewish children. After being told to come home because of the danger of Nazi Germany, Jane outright refused, and stayed on in the country.

Jane was arrested and later died in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Her last postcard was signed with the words, “There is not much to report here on the way to Heaven.” She succumbed to malnutrition sometime around the seventeenth of July, less than three months after her arrest.

Jane is one of ten confirmed Scots to have died in Nazi concentration camps.

In 1997, she was recognized by Yad Vashem as being Righteous Amongst the Nations, the only Scottish person, so far, to be so recognized.

In 2019, Hungary honored Jane at their annual March of the Living on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Other honors include being awarded a Hero of the Holocaust Medal in 2010 from the UK Government, and two stained glass windows in her former church in Queen’s Park, Glasgow.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Sources:

https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/haining.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-47786184

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/12/scottish-missionary-auschwitz-jane-haining-hungary

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46689389/jane-haining

476) Lorllys Ramos Acevedo

476: Col. Lorllys Ramos Acevedo

Former and Last Head of Venezuelan Aviation Accident Unit (aka the JIAAC—Junta Investigadora de Accidentes de Aviacion Civil)

Birth Date Unknown

The JIAAC was shut down and replaced with a new organization.

Lorllys was featured on an episode of Air Disasters on the Smithsonian Channel.

Her LinkedIn profile lists her title (using Google Translate from Spanish) as Executive Secretary Permanent Commission for Training in National Sovereignty. The translated description of her job says she coordinates and executes plans between the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Education in secondary education for adults.

She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Military Aviation School in 1986.

Sources:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorllys-ramos-acevedo-034a8b154/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junta_Investigadora_de_Accidentes_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n_Civil

475) Irena Sendler

“My emotion is being shadowed by the fact that no one from the circle of my faithful coworkers, who constantly risked their lives, could live long enough to enjoy all the honors that now are falling upon me…. I can’t find the words to thank you, my dear girls…. Before the day you have written the play “Life in a Jar” — nobody in my own country and in the whole world cared about my person and my work during the war …”

475: Irena Sendler

Savior of Children During The Shoah

Born: 15 February 1910, Warsaw, Poland

Died: 12 May 2008, Warsaw, Poland

Irena was a social worker who encouraged Jewish Parents in the ghettos to give up their children to save their lives.

She and her coworkers would write the children’s real identities down and place the slips in jars—burying them in the dirt until the war was over and they could recover their names.

In October of 1943, Irena was arrested and sent to prisoner, where she was repeatedly tortured. Among her injuries were fractures to her legs and feet. Eventually, she was sentenced to be executed. Luckily for Irena, other Żegota Leaders (The Polish Council to Aid Jews) had bribed her would be executioner, and he helped Irena escape and hide for the rest of the war.

After the war she married and had two children.

Irena was recognized by the Yad Vashem in 1965, as Righteous Among the Nations.

In 1999, a rural Kansas teacher encouraged four students to research for a National History Day project (where they discovered Irena’s story) and a project entitled “Life in a Jar” was launched—now a play that tells the life story of Irena Sendler.

In 2001, the original children were given the opportunity to visit Warsaw and meet Irena in person.

Irena's story is recounted on an episode of Monumental Mysteries titled "Lady Godiva & The Peeping Tom, Bishop's Brain, Birds of a Feather."

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Rejected Princess

Located In My Personal Library:

Tough Mothers by Jason Porath

Secret Heroes of World War II by Eric Chaline

Irena's Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman who Saved 2,500 Children From the Warsaw Ghetto by Tilar J Mazzeo

Bygone Badass Broads by Mackenzi Lee

Sources:

https://irenasendler.org/facts-about-irena/

https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous-women/sendler.asp

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/irena-sendler

https://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/irena-sendler

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/26800705/irena-sendler

474) Paulita Maxwell Jaramillo

474: Paulita Maxwell

One of Henry Antrim’s Girlfriends at the Time of His Death

Born: c. 1864, Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, USA (Present-day Mora County, New Mexico, United States of America)

Died: 17 December 1929, Fort Sumner, New Mexico, United States of America

Henry, who was better known as Billy the Kid, was killed in Paulita’s brother’s bedroom.

The Maxwell family were some of the wealthiest people in New Mexico Territory and, though not complete concrete fact, most historians recognize that the reason Henry stayed in Fort Sumner after escaping from the Lincoln Jail was Paulita. Though never proven as historical fact, some believe Paulita was pregnant with Henry’s child at the time, though if she was, no one has been able to prove what happened to the child. Some claim it was her eldest daughter, who died around the age of sixteen, however, the date her daughter was born has been contested, so this is far from historical truth.

After Henry’s death, she married and had at least three children.

Paulita is buried in the same cemetery as Henry, the now defunct Old Fort Sumner Cemetery.

According to the author Walter Noble Burns, who claimed to interview her in the 1920’s, Paulita, her brother, and their house servant Deluvina believed Henry was haunting the house he died in. Paulita also claimed in that interview that she had never dated or been involved with Henry, but the legend lives on regardless.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride by Michael Wallis

The Saga of Billy the Kid: The Thrilling Life of America’s Original Outlaw by Walter Noble Burns

To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West by Mark Lee Gardner

Sources:

The Books Listed Above

https://vocal.media/viva/paulita-maxwell-the-woman-the-myth-the-legend

https://truewestmagazine.com/article/did-paulita-maxwell-bear-billy-the-kids-child/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8348203/paulita-jaramillo

473) Deborah E Lipstadt

“In England, I had to prove that what I wrote was not libel. I wanted a trial that proved [I] was right when [I] called David Irving a denier.”

473: Deborah E Lipstadt

Shoah Historian

Born: 18 March 1947, New York City, New York, United States of America

Deborah is currently serving as the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History & Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Georgia.

She is most known for her groundbreaking books Denying the Holocaust, History on Trial: My Day In Court With a Holocaust Denier, and The Eichmann Trial.

Her memoir Denial was turned into a Hollywood film starring Rachel Weisz chronicling her trial against a Holocaust Denier who accused her of defamation of character. The Trailer is linked to the left.

Badges Earned:

Located In My Personal Library:

Denial by Deborah Lipstadt

Sources:

http://religion.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/lipstadt-deborah.html

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lipstadt-deborah

471) Qiu Jin

Sun and moon have no light left, earth is dark,
Our women’s world is sunk so deep, who can help us?
Jewelry sold to pay this trip across the seas,
Cut off from my family I leave my native land.
Unbinding my feet I clean out a thousand years of poison,
With heated heart arouse all women’s spirits.
Alas, this delicate kerchief here,
Is half stained with blood, and half with tears.

“Regrets: Lines Written En Route to Japan” 1904

471: Qiu Jin

Warrior Sometimes Called the Joan of Arc of China

Born: 8 November 1875, Xiamen, China (Though Some Historians Say 1877)

Died: 15 July 1907, Possibly Zhejiang Province, China*

Original Name: Qiu Guijin

She studied poetry as a child.

Qiu (pronounced Cho) Jin was forced into an arranged marriage and had two children with her husband.

Jin fought back against Confucian norms by cross-dressing, unbinding her feet, and traveling abroad to pursue a higher education in Japan—leaving her husband and children behind.

When she returned to China, Jin joined other militant groups, believing the best way to fix the backwards cultural norms of her country would be to overthrow Qing Dynasty that led China at the time.

Unfortunately, Jin was just a few years ahead of her time. The Empress Dowager, Cixi, was in the midst of attempting to modernize China and create a more female-friendly environment. Jin however was moving on a much faster timetable, and she you know, tried making bombs to blow up the government.

Jin was beheaded by Empress Dowager Cixi's government at the age of thirty after they charged her with conspiring against the government. This occurred even though Jin was very popular in Zhejiang Province, drawing crowds of hundreds every time she spoke in public.

Public backlash was extreme. The newspapers eulogized Jin over and over again, and made her out to be a martyr. Popular opinion was that she had been completely innocent of the charges. The man who actually carried out the execution eventually hung himself from the intense pressure.

The Empress Dowager reviewed the facts of the case after Jin's death. She concluded that Jin had in fact been one of the insurrection leaders, and upheld her death sentence as fair. The Qing Dynasty came to an end only a few years after the Empress Dowager died. Republicanism took hold in China for a time, but in 1949, Mao took hold of China and would kill an estimated seventy million people in his glorious leap forward. As of 2021, China is still controlled by the Communist party.

*Place of death interpreted from the book Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Rejected Princess

Located In My Personal Library:

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang

Rejected Princesses by Jason Porath

The Book of Awesome Women: Boundary Breakers, Freedom Fighters, Sheroes, and Female Firsts by Becca Anderson

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-qiu-jin.html

http://en.chinaculture.org/focus/focus/cities/2010-08/11/content_390571.htm

https://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/qiu-jin

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/199417031/qiu-jin

470) Gudiya

470: Gudiya (Not Real Name)

Born: c.2008, India

Gudiya is rape victim who was five years old at the time her neighbor and a friend kidnapped her and held her captive in April 2013.

The men raped her and left broken shards of a glass bottle inside of her alongside pieces of candles as well. Then the men left her in a locked room for forty hours with no food or water. They were hoping she would die. but thankfully she was rescued instead. Gudiya later had to survive an infection brought on from the foreign objects.

Gudiya was taken right after Jyoti Singh’s case made international news in December of 2012.

In 2017, she was still fighting to bring the men who hurt her to justice.

Gudiya’s father said that they received lots of attention and help for the first six months after the attack but then all the attention went away, and Gudiya was left to fight alone.

As of the time the articles (linked below) were written in 2017, the Gudiya family had received no compensation or any other justice. Multiple men were accused of brutalizing Gudiya but were still waiting for trial in 2017—one of the men was even set free because he was a minor.

Finally, in 2020, two of the men accused of hurting Gudiya were found guilty in New Delhi's court system. In late January the court sentenced them both to twenty years "vigorous imprisonment." They were both also fined Rs 31,500 (or around $415 US in June 2020) each and a compensation fine of Rs 11 lakh (or around $14,550 US in June 2020) each to Gudiya and her family. Disgustingly, the two men's attorneys argued they should have received a more lenient sentence because they were first time offenders and they had to care for their ailing parents. The court obviously didn't care or believe that garbage of an excuse though. Good riddance to both of them, and thank God justice has finally been served.

Sources:

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/5-year-old-gudiya-rape-accused-arrested-in-bihar-159396-2013-04-19

https://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/the-forgotten-trauma-brutalised-in-2013-delhi-minor-fights-a-lonely-battle-for-justice/story-cel1zP4R6EfbRmRoNb2KhP.html

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/gudiya-rape-case-delhi-court-holds-2-guilty-says-girl-experienced-exceptional-depravity-extreme-brut-2166050

https://www.timesnownews.com/mirror-now/crime/article/gudiya-rape-case-delhi-court-gives-convicts-20-years-rigorous-imprisonment/547553