They All Went to Jean's by Deborah C. Pollack
Jean’s Framing Shop, ca. 1959, at 309A South County Road, Palm Beach. Courtesy Anna Jean Howe Archives, collection of Edward and Deborah Pollack.
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rom 1954 to 1989, Anna Jean Howe owned a popular frame shop, first in Palm Beach on South County Road, and later in West Palm Beach on South Dixie Highway. She saved an extensive archive of her successful career, mainly stored in five thick scrapbooks that now belong to the author. Born in 1924 in West Palm Beach to a native Floridian, Anna Jean Woesner lived on Gardenia Street and attended the city’s Palm Beach High School before she wed Palmlee Howe in 1954. After working as a designer
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in a Palm Beach flower shop, Jean partnered with Richard Braido to open the Jean and Dick Framing Shop at 309-A South County Road the year she married. Celebrities of the 1950s, including Hollywood singer/ actress and part-time Florida resident Frances Langford, and Palm Beach’s favorite cartoonist, Zito, patronized the store and gave Jean and Dick their best wishes on autographed photos. Due to a business disagreement with Dick Braido, in 1959 Jean Howe formed her own company at the same South County Road
