In appreciation: Jenny Jung

Jenny Jung: From Seoul, South Korea, with soul, the nail technician with the softest hands and the warmest heart.

The following narrative comes from recent remembrances at the home of a dear member of our community:  Jenny Jung, wife of Ronny Jung and co-owner of Spa and Nails in Sharon.  She died on May 19, 2017.

When asked when she was born, Jenny’s answer: “Two birthdays!”

Two weeks after she was born in Seoul, her mother went back to work. Someone asked her mother, “When does the certificate say?” Her real birthday is Dec. 9, 1956, but the paper said it was Feb. 25, 1958. Jenny’s explanation: “So many babies born and die in my country.  The town couldn’t keep up.”  

Her father ran a successful ginseng farm.  When her teacher asked her, “Who do you most respect in the world?,” she said, “My parents.” Her siblings included five girls and two boys. “My oldest sister was jealous because I was very smart, but she was street smart. Anyway, we were the smartest. But I was the favorite, number one. Buy the dress, buy the shoes. My parents did those things for me.”

Jenny met Ronny in 1980 in Seoul when he was a college student. She was a secretary at the time. One Saturday afternoon, her friend’s close friend’s nephew came up to her at work and said, “Please, somebody needs a partner in an all-day-long matchmaking contest. If he has no partner, he gets a penalty!” (So Jenny was the expensive date that paid off, because Ronny would have had to pay $10,000 if he didn’t find a partner).  

“Right away we both fell in love. He made me laugh. I liked that.He just made me happy. But the next day, I remembered that my first sister had arranged for me to meet somebody else. I already liked Ronny. Seventy percent my mind was made up, 30 percent still wondering.” The dilemma was how not to disappoint her sister. However, Jenny had to be honest: “Sister, I didn’t tell you, yesterday something happened. I forgot you wanted me to meet someone.” Her sister: “What do you want to do?”   So, as Jenny tells it, she snuck out. “With about one hour to get to the meeting place from my sister’s, I woke up early. I was passionate to see him again.”

Ronny had been in the army.  Jenny recalled what he wore that day, “A grayish combo jacket, beige-y pants, black shoes and big glasses, long hair.  Six couples. First date was very fun. Games. A roller coaster ride. Balloons went up in the sky. Really, really fun. After that, we all went to dinner. Most of the girls were college students. They didn’t have ‘good style.’ So everybody focused on me. They let me sing for them.  And I still remember that song, from the first date.”

From then on, their two lives became a singular mission. Ronny came to America first, Jenny followed, and almost immediately, they got married at Norway Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.  On Sept. 19, Jenny and Ronny would have been married 35 years.

Jenny’s first job was at a sewing factory, while Ronny was a custom jewelry designer at an importing business in Manhattan. For the last 25 years, she has been a nail technician, after studying in Queens to become licensed.  However, Ronny wanted to start his own business.  Together they opened a nail salon at 93rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan.  It was successful, but they found owning a business in Manhattan risky with rent at $16,000 a month.

So, three years ago, Ronny began looking for a quiet town.  In Sharon, he found an empty space in the shopping plaza, where he started Nail and Spa. Boseok Nam, who worked with Jenny and Ronny from the beginning, said, “She really worked.Hard, usually. But in the beginning, also a lot of laughing. When no customers were there at the start of the business, we said, ‘Abugiiii!’ (‘Help, God!’). In 25 years doing nails, I never worked with any boss who was so nice to the people working for her.”

For the first time, Jenny and Ronnie had a house.  No troubles.  They were eating and sleeping well, exercising.

But last November, through routine blood tests, her doctor found cancer.  Then came a meeting with a cancer doctor, lymph node doctor, stomach doctor — four doctors in all. They were told the only thing they could do was chemo.  But together Ronny and Jenny decided not to go that route, especially since nobody could guarantee a good outcome.

Jenny still experienced no pain for the next three months.  Then one evening late in January, Jenny called Ronny from California, where she was exploring nutritional therapy, with a sharp pain in her side. When he arrived, she was already in surgery. “Just give her life,” he implored. He was told Jenny had six days to live. “That was the hardest time in my life.” When the doctors asked what he wanted most, Ronny’s reply was immediate: “To be back home in Sharon!  I must get her home to Sharon!” Having signed all sorts of disclaimers, this brave pair defied the odds and flew back East.

It was evening when she arrived at Sharon Hospital. Over the next week, she received, in Ronny’s words, “the best care of any hospital yet. Dr. Marshall and the nurses were very nice and gentle.”  But she and Ronny wished to be at their home in Millerton. With Ronny’s attention to every final need of Jenny’s, she rallied long beyond those six days, aided by guidance from hospice, the nursing oversight of Nancy Hodgkins and the love of many concerned friends. And Ronny? As Jenny put it, “He is almost like an ordinary woman, more ordinary than an ordinary woman.  So detailed.”  Translation:  Ronny saw to everything for others around him, and, most recently, he was seeing to everything Jenny needed.

Just last week, it didn’t take much urging for Jenny to sing the song she sang for Ronny when they first met 35 years ago. With two friends hanging on each note and nuance at her bedside, she reminded her listeners that this was “the first time I have sung in seven weeks.” According to Jenny, the “inside story is, ‘You’re gonna regret in the future if you don’t know how much I love you.’” But Ronny did know.

No regrets needed, Ronny.   

Elyse Harney put it this way after her last visit to see Jenny:  “Since Jenny and Ron came to Sharon, they have been a ray of sunshine. I rubbed her toes. She [Jenny] said, ‘So good.’ She could only think of us. Truly an inspiration to anyone she touched. She knew we all adored her.”

Molly Scoville Fitzmaurice

Sheffield