About Me

• This site came about from my experiences of living, working and raising a family of seven children in Maine.  I moved to Maine in 1966 with my husband and children.  At the time we were  a part of the Acadia National Park Service family.  My Husband, Anthony Menzietti was then Chief of Maintenance at the park.  I was a full time home maker but did a whole lot of other things.  
• I gardened, painted, drew pen and ink illustrations for books and advertising publications.  Weaving, scuba diving, playing the guitar and singing were also important to me.  Photography was a passion and I had many photos published, including  in Maine Paradise, Down East Magazine and a wall mural displayed at ANP visitors center for many years.  Another passion is painting in many mediums. 
• Music has always been important to me. Directing a folk choir at the Abby Chapel in Seal Harbor for many years was one of the most important activities to my personal growth and well being in the seventies and eighties.  The choir members and accompanists were my children and other members of the community both young and old.  We sang at church functions, suppers and other local churches, some that could only be reached by boat.  I sang with a group of singers from Boston called Norembega Harmony.  They sang shaped note singing that was written for early American churches to be sung unaccompanied.  I also was a member of the Surry Opera company for many years, traveling to the Soviet Union during the cold war, to the Republic of Georgia and Japan.  
• I became employed at The Jackson Laboratory in 1981 and worked there for thrity-three years.  Working at the lab changed my life that, up to that point, was very right brained.  The lab provided a much needed, left brain balance.  I am so grateful for the time I spent there, what I learned and could contribute to the scientific community and the wonderful friends I made there. I now live in Ellsworth, Maine and have fourteen grandchildren and three great grandchildren as well as many unofficially adopted offspring.

Following is a biography that appears in  press releases promoting my recent publications. 

Jean Marie Ivey moved to Maine in 1966 to live and raise her family in and near Acadia National Park. In the early eighties, she began a thirty-three-year career at the Jackson laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. During that time, she also pursued a part-time career in photography, freelance writing, and illustrating, coauthoring the book Maine Paradise with Russell D. Butcher, published by Viking Press in 1972. In 1993 she cowrote and co-illustrated Facts and Fancy: Acadia National Park, Mount Desert Island and in 2018 Jean Marie along with her daughter Donna Marie Lee published a new and revised addition of “Facts and Fancy” that contains many fine points pertaining to the history and essence of Mount Desert Island in Acadia. Although she loves to write, paint, sing, and garden, her greatest love is her family: seven children, fourteen grandchildren, and two great-grandsons. In 2016 she published her first novel “Cassie’s Dream” that grew out of that love. The novel is an enthralling voyage through time as explored through the dreams and visions of the main character, Cassandra Wright. Jean Marie’s life has been full of mysticism, influence of ancestry, history, and a deep and abiding love of Maine.

My reason for starting this blog is to introduce you to my published books.  I started writing in earnest several years ago being driven by a desire to tell stories.  Now that I have begun, I can not stop.  I love writing.

If you are a visitor here, I welcome your comments.

You can follow me on Facebook @books.by.jeanmarieivey