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Jane Robinson lived her values and her dreams. She was a great mother to her beloved son Dylan and daughter Laura. She was a devoted wife for 48 years to her husband Gary, the love of her life. Jane was a life-long community activist and became a leading advocate in Alameda County for quality care and fair treatment for senior citizens. She was energetic, cheerful, interested in new ideas, filled with a spirit of adventure, and she loved to travel. Click here to see Jane's complete rememberence on Legacy.com
Classmate Peggy DeBeers Brown shares her memories of Jane in a letter to Jane's daughter, Laura: Dear Laura, My sincere condolences on the death of your wonderful mother. If you wrote the obituary that appeared in The Chronicle, congratulations! It was very informative and captured her spirit. Jane and I had much in common, including the death of our mothers from Alzheimer’s, and I feel for you since I know how sad it is to lose your mother to this disease. I am an old friend of your mother’s. We grew up in the same neighborhood in Bethesda, Maryland, and attended elementary school and high school together. I recall having dinner at your house years ago when our children were perhaps 8 and 10 (they were born in 1973 and 1975) and you and your brother were younger—we watched a 49’er football game and I think it was the game where Dwight Clark made “The Catch”! Huge excitement! Some memories of your mother: we both loved to read and especially enjoyed the C.S. Lewis Narnia books which were appearing, about one per year, while we were in grade school and later. We were in different Girl Scout troops, but we went to a 2-week Virginia scout camp together for 2 years and had a wonderful time. One thing was not fun for your mom: the lady coaching us in learning songs to sing for our parents on visiting day had to tell Jane not to sing. She was quite a loud enthusiastic singer and was off key and was throwing the others off. She was indignant about this and complained to me. I had to tell her that she was indeed off key. Of course, I hadn’t mentioned this before, being too polite. After high school she went to Smith and I was at Radcliffe. She visited me once or twice in Cambridge. Then in the summer of 1964, after our junior years, we drove across the country together in my tiny VW Beetle (a third girl may have been with us but my memory doesn’t recall who!) . We had arranged to stay at an apartment in Berkeley with the girlfriend of my cousin Mike Howard (no relation to you!) who was a couple of years older than me and lived in Portland. I think he had just graduated from Reed. Anyway, Jane and I and the girlfriend (her name might have been Ann) and two other friends of hers all lived in the upper floor of a house north of the Berkeley campus and we were all taking classes at Berkeley. Mike was staying nearby with some relatives of his (not related to me) but he would join us for dinner. We each were responsible for one dinner a week. I hope Mike and Jane helped me—I was NOT a great cook, or even an adequate one. We had a great summer. Jane and I drove over to the Republican Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco and just walked in--this was the convention that nominated Goldwater. We just said we were from Maryland and someone directed us to the Maryland group. I think they were supporting Sen. Scranton for the nomination. It was quite fun. Nothing much was going on—all the events took place in the evening and we visited during the day. The delegates were very kind to us kids. Then later in San Francisco we would occasionally get together. Jane and I organized several B-CC reunions for our class. One I recall was at the Marines Memorial Club in S.F. for our 50th reunion, i.e. 2011. Several classmates came from Nevada and Washington and southern California, I think we had three or four tables. Another earlier one was at a restaurant in S.F. --perhaps Italian, I don’t recall the details; and I think a third was a picnic in Golden Gate Park where I reserved a site and then had to fight off others who just appeared and didn’t realized we had a reservation for that space. My final memory is a family connection: Jane and I together were responsible for my cousin Sandy’s marriage to a high school classmate Suzanne Snell. Sandy was living in the Baltimore area at the time and he wanted to meet a girl, “smart but not intellectual” and asked me to find someone. I asked Jane and she said Suzie would be perfect. That was when Jane and I were still in college. Sandy and Suzie have now been married 55 years and have four children and at least eight grandchildren. Jane gets most of the credit ,but I feel I helped by knowing that Jane would be the perfect one to ask. All the best , Peggy DeBeers Brown
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