JEANIE CROSS ALLEN: Life lessons learned from a special lady

I and hundreds if not thousands of other women who grew up in Albany mourn the recent passing of Mrs. Peggy Forehand Pritchett.

In 1948, I was 4 years old and in Miss Peggy’s very first dancing class. In the beginning, Miss Ivey played the piano, Miss Jo collected the money and Peggy’s mother, Mrs. Forehand, made the brown paper (or were they newsprint?) patterns our mothers followed to sew our costumes. When I was a teenager Dr. Forehand treated me when I pulled a muscle because I didn’t warm up and kicked too high.

How much richer my life has been because Miss Peggy was my mentor, my role model, my idol, and my friend. Here are some of the life lessons I learned from 14 years under her spell:

1. If you’re on the first row, you have to know the steps.

2. If you’re on the second row, you don’t have to think to keep in step with everybody else.

3. Smile and act like you’re having fun, and the audience will think you’re great and have fun, too.

4. Smile and look like you know what you’re doing and if you forget the steps or stumble, most people won’t notice.

5. Dancing solo means you don’t have to share the stage, audience or applause (or responsibility or blame).

6. You don’t learn anything staring at yourself in the mirrors.

7. Some people just weren’t made to bend over backwards.

8. Some people just weren’t meant to be on their toes.

9. Sometimes the best view of the stage is from the wings.

10. Some people get shiny red and white Chevy convertibles in high school, but you probably won’t be one of them.

11. If you really want to help out in a pinch, just look around and see what needs to be done and do it. Don’t whine or ask questions.

12. If you plan to have an interesting, creative life, you’d better marry someone who never sees a mess. (Peggy’s living room and dining room were a confusion of costumes, props, tapes and notes. She told me, “Jimmy never sees a mess.”)

13. When someone who loves you makes your costumes they fit better.

14. If it sounds like an interesting challenge, say yes and worry about how to do it later.

15. The worst thing that can happen to you if you ask someone to do something is that they might say no. Often, they will be so stunned by the request that they will say yes. (Over the years I have organized a lot of projects for non-profits, and sometimes I’ve seen a look on the face of someone I enlisted that said, “Why am I doing this? Why am I here?” Questions I asked myself when Peggy recruited me one summer to teach water ballet at Tift Park Pool — when rehearsals ran late and I found myself cutting up salad for a dinner party with her 5-year-old daughter, Paige, standing on a stool next to me at the kitchen sink; when I danced at the Municipal Auditorium with little girls that hardly came up to my arm pits, in a costume that wouldn’t zip, because somebody in their class threw up backstage and there was a gap on the front row.)

16. Always give more than you ask for: Peggy devoted many after-hours to coaching and polishing — helping me prepare a dance for this civic club program or that pageant or … For example, she taught me a stop-time number for eighth-grade assembly that so wowed my fellow Albany Junior High students they voted me both March of Dimes Queen and May Day Queen that year.

I love Miss Peggy and forever hold her close in my heart.

Jeanie Cross Allen, of Augusta, has been employed with Georgia Public Broadcasting for 30 years. A former Albany resident, she was Miss Albany and Miss Georgia in 1962, and a finalist in the Miss America Pageant. A University of Georgia graduate, she has served in numerous arts, cultural, and social services boards and has organized a number of events, including her favorite — chairing the 1994 World Canals Conference. She and her husband, Richard, have six children and nine grandchildren.