A Brief Family History (want to skip the details, go straight to the pictures?... Click here..)
I was born in Los Angeles, California on February 24, 1947. My mother’s family came to the United States from what was then the Free City of Danzig, and is now Gdansk, Poland. At the time, however, Danzig was more German than Polish, and German was the language I heard at family gatherings. My father’s mother is of Russian heritage; his father’s side of the family traces its roots back many generations in New York City. I have one younger brother, Mark, who lives in Sebastopol, California with his wife Stephanie, their dog and two cats.
I attended UCLA and graduated in 1968, taking an additional year to get a teaching credential. During this year, I met Daniel Odell who was the teaching assistant for a biology lab course. We were pretty much fated to be together; there were 3 females in the class, and the other two were involved with others (although if Dan had known that one of them was not being true to her relationship, things might have turned out differently). We were married August 24th, 1969. Thus, Dan has only to remember the number 24 every 6 months, and make sure to come home with something special.
After the wedding, we moved to an apartment in Santa Monica. Dan continued to work on his PhD at UCLA, and I taught junior high school science. Dan’s research included the social behavior of sea lions and elephant seals on San Nicolas Island, where he spent half of each week during their breeding seasons. The foundation for future travel was established.
Dan eventually finished his degree. Then, as now, jobs for biologists were not free for the asking. He was employed as a part time lecturer at UCLA, and I continued to teach, while he looked for permanent employement.
In 1971 we had our first child, Jason Paul Odell. He got his name because at the time Dan was working on graphs for his thesis, and in the days before computers, he was laboriously lettering each axis with his Leroy Lettering Set. He came home one day and informed me that if we had a boy, Jason would be his name, as he had just spent the day labeling the months of the year axes, and as he approached the end of each year, JASON would appear on his graph. So, our son was born on November 14, 1971, and named for those venerable months of July, August, September, October, and November. Paul was added for my maternal grandfather.
In 1973, Dan accepted a position as a professor at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. In Miami, we added to our family with the birth of daughters Jessica Lynne and Nicole Elyse on October 23, 1975. I enjoyed being an ‘at home’ mom, and also dabbled in photography. Once the children were older, I returned to work, this time teaching pre-school, substituting in elementary school, and finally taking a full time position with the Zoological Society of Florida, running an Outreach program which entailed taking animals around the county for educational purposes, and teaching other education programs at the zoo.
In 1987, Dan felt the time was right for a change. Having done cooperative research with SeaWorld, he agreed to shave his beard and become their corporate research scientist. We sold the house, I quit my job, and we moved to Orlando, where we have been ever since. By now the kids were getting old enough to leave home once in a while, and I began to get away with Dan from time to time, as well as volunteer for Adult Literacy.
Jason graduated from high school in 1989 and went full circle back to UCLA for his undergraduate work. Jessica attended Eckerd College in St Petersburg, Florida, a biology student like her father and brother. Nicole preferred chemistry and pursued her studies at Florida State University, following that with a master’s degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign.
In 2002, Dan "retired" from SeaWorld and accepted a position with the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute. Jason received his PhD from UC Riverside and is working in Colorado. Jessica decided to return to school and is working on her master's degree at the University of Maine. I've taken up writing as a 'serious hobby' and have the draft of a novel sitting on my hard drive, and I'm still volunteering for the Adult Literacy League in Orlando.
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