Henry ("Mont") and Florence Fowler gave birth to Jeanne Lynell Fowler on June 27, 1939 in the same Reading, Michigan farmhouse in which the family lived. As a child Jeanne played with pigs and swing boards, even going so far as to marry "Hankin," one of the swing boards. Her grade school years were spent in the single room Brown Schoolhouse, where Jeanne was one of the top five students in her class of four girls and one boy. When Jeanne was in eighth grade, her sister Nora Lee introduced her to a classmate, Bob Rose. The two of them began dating in 1952, going on double dates to football games with Jeanne’s older sister.

Jeanne graduated from Reading High School in 1957, and lived for a time in Coldwater with her sister Rachael, all the while working for Gambles department store. In December of 1957, she married her high school sweetheart Bob Rose. Bob was in the US Navy, and his commission took them to Washington state, where they lived for 6 months or so. After Bob was discharged from the Navy in 1959, he and Jeanne (along with Jeanne’s sister Shirley, who had flown out to Washington) embarked upon a cross-country trip; the trip took them from Seattle down to Los Angeles, and then along Route 66 back to Michigan.

At this time, Bob began taking classes at Western Michigan University, and Jeanne helped support the two of them by working in the billing department at Sears in Kalamazoo. The two of them lived in Kalamazoo until 1964, when Bob got a teaching job in Marion, Indiana. The couple established relationships with some of the other Industrial Education teachers at the newly opened Marion High School; the group would come to be known as the "Un-Group," and their friendship would survive Bob & Jeanne’s move back up to Michigan in 1966, when Bob took a job with the State Technical Institute. In 1967 Jeanne gave birth to the couple’s first child, Scott. In 1970 she gave birth to Penny, and to Stephanie in 1972. In the same year Bob & Jeanne moved to Plainwell, where they were building a new home.