Jane Franklin Yingst

(1934-2025)

Jane Ellen Yingst (nee Franklin), a long-time resident of Jacksonville, Florida died peacefully on August 4, 2025 in nearby Orange Park. She was born on January 8, 1934 in Daytona Beach, Florida to Carl Virgil Franklin and his wife Eunice Hancock Franklin, where Jane's father had one of his assignments as a Western Union telegraph operator. Subsequent assignments brought the family to Richwood, WVA where Jane's sister Esther was born in 1940. In 1942 her family moved to Norfolk, Virginia where her father worked with a local Coca-Cola bottling plant. Jane spent many of her early years in Norfolk where the family was active at Fairmount Park United Methodist Church. Jane was a talented vocalist and sang in many churches and was active in Job's Daughters, a component of her Father's Masonic Lodge. Following some college education, she held a bank position, followed by a long-term employment with the Seaboard Railroad, which began in Norfolk with a later move to Richmond, Virginia.

In 1975 she married Robert Owen Yingst and the couple became active in St. Giles Presbyterian Church in Richmond. When the railroad moved its offices to Jacksonville, Florida Jane and Bob relocated there in 1981, becoming active in St. Peter's Episcopal Church. Shortly afterward, they moved her mother, who was predeceased by Jane's father in 1963, to Jacksonville and who lived until 1987.

Upon Bob's death in 1996, Jane lived an active and productive life until about two years before her death, when her health necessitated moving to a care facility.

Jane is survived by her sister Esther Franklin Smolleck of Las Cruces, New Mexico where Esther moved a month after her marriage in 1979 and where her husband Howard is a retired Professor of Electrical Engineering at New Mexico State University. She also has cousins and other known relatives, in central Florida, in Georgia, and in Arizona with whom she maintained contact.

A memorial service will be held at a later date at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Jacksonville.