Jane Winslow Eliot

A tremendous eulogy written by Jane’s dear friend Kaaren Kitchell, with pictures by Richard Beban, also her dear friend, was published recently in the online journal PARIS PLAY. Please read and feel free to comment.

September 27, 1926 – July 31, 2011

Jane Winslow Eliot died peacefully at home on Sunday, July 31. Those who knew Jane, loved her. Her generosity, her energy, her interest, her wisdom, and her enormous heart touched everyone who met her.

“Wrapping ourselves in experience, blankets around our souls, we move on.” From Around the World by Mistake.

Here are some things people have written:

“She will be for ever a treasured part of my childhood and I tell stories to my children which often involve the Eliots. Your mother was one of the first adults with whom I felt individually validated as a child. She was a great human being and lived a fascinating and rich life.” Dominic Raeside

“Thoughts of your mother filled my soul today. She is such a magnificent person who has blessed my life.”

“This morning I was by myself in my pool floating and looking at the sky and thinking of all of Jane’s comments to me…There was no one who told me more things which I didn’t know than Jane. Things about life and people. Things that I had never thought to be the way she said they really were. I always found out the she was right. I am so grateful to have known her.”

“Jane was one true and everlasting light in our lives, and the lives of our children. She was never forgotten in life, nor will be in death. Our [Waldorf] school would not stand its ground without the spirited energy Jane brought toward it. She shall be honored this month in a private way with our board and faculty, and in public when we publish our school newsletter.”

“We were traveling with you in Scotland…and we ran down to the boat house and there, sitting on a stone wall, was Aunt Jane in an elegant, deep blue gown with glittering, silvery threads, with her hair long and loose. You were so delighted to see her wearing this and called it her Robe of Starry Brightness! She looked like a goddess, smiling at us and laughing with joy to take a break from traveling, to be in a calm, lovely, easy place where she could refresh herself and array herself as the Wisdom Tree Woman that she truly is.”

From Alexander Eliot: “About twenty years into our family adventure, I wrote a full-out emotional poem to Jane. Here’s part of it.”

FOR JANE

You, who are born anew
In the desert,
In the desert of my thought
continually.

You, who reveal
those daemons riding upon the air,
which inhale, exhale,
such natural, divine power.

Guard the lips,
and guide the heart
of this person who
loves you!