Jessie Lee
Jessie was a morale builder for the troops during WWII, Fallbrook High School girls would occasionally attend dances and enjoy “geedunk” (ice cream) at Camp Pendleton. Sometimes, the Marine Corps Band would play for dances at the Fallbrook HIgh School cafeteria.
Front row: Chris Navarro, Jack Stewart, Jessie Lincoln, Helen Armfield, Gordon Madley
June 10, 1945
At one such dance, a sailor named Jack Lee from Mississippi asked Jessie to dance. “That was all it took”, said Jessie. They married in the historic First Christian Church which still stands at Mission and Fig after she graduated. Jessie and Jack settled in Fallbrook.
December 1945
Jack first worked under the GI Bill 52/20 program, which was $20 per week for 52 weeks, operating a tractor. He later went to work for Don Radmacher at the Chevron station in town.
When Jack heard that the Mobil station at Fallbrook and Main was up for lease, Jack and Jessie went to Mr. Mapes at the Bank of America and borrowed $1500.
They were in business! Jack ran the gas station and Jessie kept the books while raising their two daughters, Shirley and Donna. They later ran a Shell station in Vista but came back to Fallbrook when a Richfield station was built at Main and Elder.
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Jack later worked in Fallbrook for the school system for 19 years. He planted the trees at the La Paloma School on Heald. Jessie worked in Dr. Boren’s dental office for 16.5 years. In 1986, Jessie and 16 other ladies formed the Fallbrook Quilt Guild. She has made many beautiful quilts and is still quilting and attending meetings.
Jessie has supported Fallbrook in the Twenty-Thirty Ladies, The Women’s Club and the Rotary. Like Jessie, both of her daughters were married in the historic First Christian Church. Daughter Donna Roberts lives in Wyoming and her daughter Shirley Fleming still lives in Fallbrook. “I knew it was my home.,” said Jessie, “my only home.”
Jessie was 9, her sister Donna was almost 3 years old, when they came to Fallbrook in 1937 from Wyoming, along with their parents and three other siblings. Their first Fallbrook home was at the corner of Main and East
Mission, with a huge vegetable garden that fed vegetables to half the town during those days. “It was the height of the Great Depression but we didn’t think times were hard because everyone was in the same boat,” explained Jessie.
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Father Robert worked for the WPA, and then helped build Lindbergh Field and the Lilac Tunnel. He also helped build the beautiful rock work at the Fallbrook High School, pushing a wheel barrow.
Jessie’s mother, Opal Lincoln, who had suffered from kidney stones swore that she got her health back by eating olives in Fallbrook. Opal died two days before her 100th birthday in 2004. She retired after 31 years with the Naval Weapons Station and Camp Pendleton. Opal was a past president of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Ladies Auxiliary and was active in the Fallbrook Angel Society, American Legion, Moose Club, Boys and Girls Club and the Fallbrook Historical Society.
Jessie and Donna are the two surviving members of the Lincoln family, a family that has been actively supporting Fallbrook for 80 years.
