Jane was born at Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta on February 7, 1932 to William Anderson and Stella Louise Freeman Speir. She met the love of her life and future husband, Arthur Dean Brook, in the 4th grade at Sylvan Hills Elementary School. She graduated from Brown High, attended Georgia State University, and trained as a medical technologist at Crawford Long Hospital. At the conclusion of her clinical training, she was certified by the American Society for Clinical Pathology. In a service at Sylvan Hills Baptist Church, Atlanta on December 20, 1952, she married Arthur, home from Fort Jackson on a three-day-pass. The young couple moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where Jane worked for the South Carolina Department of Public Health and Arthur served as a Division Assistant Instructor training young soldiers during the Korean War.
After Arthur’s two-year sojourn with the Army, the couple returned to Atlanta where Arthur completed his education and they began their family. In a span of eight years, Jane delivered Steve, Debra, Dean, and Laurie – all at Crawford Long Hospital. Not wishing to get in a rut, she delivered their fifth child, Freeman, at the Medical Center of Central Georgia after the family moved to Macon.
Education was always of primary importance to Jane. She supported Arthur when he returned to Georgia Tech and enrolled him in the Master of Business program at Georgia State University. When Steve left home for college, Jane decided that the time had come for her to complete her own education and she enrolled in a program for non-traditional students at Wesleyan College. At the time, she had four children at home, the youngest of whom was three. Nonetheless, she excelled and received a Bachelor of Science in biology with honors a few days before Steve received his undergraduate degree. Bitten with the education bug, she then obtained a Master of Education from Mercer University. To complete her education, she and Arthur traveled extensively in the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Galapagos, Mexico, and Peru.
A member of Ingleside Baptist Church since 1964, for years Jane taught the two-year-old Sunday school class and co-chaired the flower committee with her beloved friends and fellow Wesleyan alumna, Barbara Magnan and Emily Whitaker Vickers respectively. Also for years, she planned the trips for the Inglelites, the senior group at Ingleside. Jane was active throughout her life in garden clubs in North Decatur and Macon, the Macon Newcomers Club, the Macon Junior Women’s Club, the Paran Cemetery Committee, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. She volunteered as a Pink Lady at the Medical Center of Central Georgia. In 1973, the Federated Women’s Clubs of Georgia named the Jane and Arthur Brook family its Family of the Year.
Jane was a gifted homemaker, cook, gardener, painter, and flower arranger. An accomplished needlewoman, she sewed, knitted, crocheted, and embroidered. In the 1960s when pillbox hats were popular, Jane molded a perfect pillbox hat on an upturned Revere Ware pot. Endlessly creative, nothing was beyond her.
A devoted daughter, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Jane was preceded in death by her parents and her niece, Mildred Louise Haga. She is survived by: her devoted and much loved husband, Arthur; her children, Steven Ralph Brook (Nina Morrison Brook), Debra Jane Brook (Michael Farel Kemp), William Dean Brook (Joanna Buffington), Laurie Brook Douglas (James Thomas Douglas), and Arthur Freeman Brook; her granddaughter, Katherine Graham Brook Kemp; her ten grandsons, Christopher Anderson Brook (Moira Downey), Matthew Graham Brook (Lydia Iliopoulos Brook), Arthur Benjamin Brook, Anderson Speir Brook Kemp (Natalie Luti), Samuel Brook Douglas, Joseph Morrison Brook, James Arthur Douglas, William Denney Douglas, Robert Cleveland Brook, and Alexander Dean Brook; her great-grandchildren Sophia Ruth Brook, Elias Demetrios Brook, and Isabelle Eugenia Brook; her sister Ann Speir Haga; and numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins.
Graveside services for family and friends will be held at 2 PM on April 11, 2021 at Paran Baptist Church Cemetery in the community of Blount, Georgia (GPS address: 5691 Hwy 42, Forsyth, Georgia 31029). The family will greet family and friends after the service. Jane’s grandchildren will serve as pallbearers. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Jane Speir Brook Scholarship Fund, Wesleyan College, 4760 Forsyth Road, Macon, GA 31210 or the Paran Cemetery Fund, 5423 N. Hwy 42, Forsyth, GA 31029.
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Snow’s Memorial Chapel, Bass Road has charge of the arrangements.
