There aren’t many farm places in Grosse Pointe, but in chemistry teacher Wendy Jerome’s backyard, you can find her taking care of all sorts of farm animals, from ducks and chickens to bunnies and guinea pigs. When she’s not caring for her farm animals, Jerome is busy teaching chemistry and hopes to share her love of animals with her students.
Living in a suburban place, like Grosse Pointe, makes it more challenging to learn about and engage with farm life, but Jerome’s goal is to educate more students. With hopes of owning her very own learning farm, she is very passionate about teaching students about where their food comes from and about farm life.
“I think a lot of kids, here in Grosse Pointe, don’t have exposure to them and don’t really know where their food comes from,” Jerome says. “So that’s my goal, to educate. Someday I want to have an educational farm here in Grosse Pointe so that all kids can learn about farm animals.”
With Jerome growing up in a suburban area, she wasn’t exposed to farmland until growing up. By caring for farm animals and exposing herself to farm life, it completely changed her perspective on animals.
“Yeah, the farm animal thing is all brand new to me, but I love it,” Jerome said. “I think I should have grown up on a farm.”
Throughout her lifetime, Jerome has always been an animal lover. However, her family members have allergies to dogs and cats. She found a solution to still care for animals while not having to worry about allergies.
“I’ve always been an animal lover, and we can’t have dogs and cats because people in the family are allergic,” Jerome said. “So we went just kind of a different route with guinea pigs and rabbits, and they just became family members like a dog or a cat would.”
Being so close to all these animals, Jerome has learned to love the lifestyle and what comes with it. She has even thought about her future and what she wants to do after she is done teaching.
“I would absolutely leave here and just go live on a farm someplace when I retire,” Jerome said.
