Jane Edmands Miller, born February 10, 1942, in Lansing MI died at 6:20am on Friday September 19, 2014 at Kathy Hospice in West Bend, WI. With her in her last hours were her daughter, Cary Miller, and son-in-law Mats Bovin of Grafton, WI.
After struggling with shortness of breath in late July, Jane was diagnosed with Stage IV adenocarcinoma on August first. We suspect that the cancer started in her lungs, but by the time we caught the cancer, it had spread to a number of organs and metastasized throughout her skeletal system. Despite the pain of the disease, she kept her trademark smile and good spirits through a round of chemotherapy before deciding to move to Kathy Hospice last week.
Jane attended Washington Grade School and Bay City Central High School in Bay City, Michigan where she graduated in 1960 before attending Ann Arbor to study nursing. While she changed majors after realizing her true calling as a teacher, she often felt that her early nursing training came in handy later in life. She graduated in 1965, the same year that she married Don Peter Miller whom she had met the year before while both were counselors at Camp Conestoga for the summer. After spending the first summer of their marriage in New Orleans, they moved to River Falls, WI where Don joined the faculty at UWRF. Jane taught special education for the River Falls School system until they adopted their daughter Cary Miller in April of 1970. She returned to full-time work in 1974 for the Baldwin-Woodville school district teaching special education until her early retirement in 1992 due to severe arthritis. She was very passionate about her work, and took pride in the successful independent lives that the young people she worked with were able to achieve.
Throughout her life, Jane felt strongly about pushing boundaries for women, attending flight school when United sought to diversify its pilots (one of her classmates became the first woman pilot for the airline) and opening her own business, Herbs Plus during the 1980s when she grew fresh herbs and catnip over the summer, then sold dried herbs and home-made catnip cat toys in a mail-order catalog produced on our Apple IIe computer. Jane also excelled at knitting and music often forming or joining groups and organizations that celebrated these arts.
After retirement, Don and Jane moved to New Mexico living first in Silver City, where Jane organized and directed a Foreign Film society for nearly a decade, then Albuquerque, where Jane ran the library at the UU church, and finally moving to Las Cruces, where she nursed Don through his final illness. Jane moved to West Bend, WI in February of 2014 to live closer to her daughter in Grafton, WI and her brother John Edmands in Michigan. She enjoyed two trips to her brother's cabin in Brimley, MI with her daughter before being diagnosed with Cancer in August.
In accordance with her wishes, Jane has been cremated. No memorial service has been planned. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her name can be made to Kathy Hospice 3232 Pleasant Valley Road, Froedert St. Joseph's Hospital Campus, West Bend, WI 53095 or to Jane's favorite charity Crisp Point Lighthouse 1944 County Road 412, Newberry, MI 49868.