My mother was the kind of mother everybody should have. She loved her family and life. She was Mom, Grandma, Gigi, Honey, and Jane. She was an amazing woman with so many wonderful qualities. Not only was she the strongest woman I have ever known, she was kind, loving, selfless, giving, intelligent, talented, and adventurous.  She was simply amazing. We were lucky to have her in our lives; and as our Mom.  
 
We were all loved unconditionally. To know her was to love and admire her. It's been the greatest privilege to be her daughter. 
 
She gave me life.  In dark moments she saved my life. 
 
If only I could have saved hers.
 
On the night of September 14,2015, God sent angels down to carry my beautiful mom home to Heaven. 
 
My heart was shattered.  My best friend was gone.  Gone, in the Earthly sense.  She's in Gods care now.
 
I miss you so much Mom! Life seems so different since that night. But I no longer fear death. I know it's not the end. I have not lost you. I know this because I see you, hear you, and feel your love everywhere. I see you in the stars at night shining down upon me. I see your smile as I watch the rising sun in the morning and I feel your peace in the setting sun in the evenings. When I look across the horizon into the mountains I feel your strength. You are in the majestic ocean waves and the gently falling summer rains. You are in the colors of the rainbow and the gentle Spring breezes. 
 
Everything beautiful-everything that is you.
 
You will always be with us-in our hearts and our cherished memories.  There will come a day when the angels will return for each of us that have loved you so dearly. They will guide us to your Heaven's door.  You will hear a knock. You will put your book down.  Get up from your chair.  Open the door.  
 
We will see your warm smile. You will embrace us with your loving and gentle arms and welcome us home.once again.
 
I will forever love you Mom

There is another angel watching over us all. Jane, Grandma, GG, Janie, Mom, sister, and wife, she touched so many lives with her warm heart and kind soul. The world is a much better place because she was a part of it. We are each blessed to have so many memories to cherish. 
 
Grandma-You will be in my heart forever, the day I I walk down the aisle, when I have my first child, and every single day in between. I will always remember how you used to light up a room with your smile, that first time you let me drive you on the freeway, evening chats on the back porch, encouraging words when I was down, and the countless holidays we spent in yours and Bubba's home. I can't wait to teach my children and grandchildren how to make a banana cream pie just like you showed me, I know I will never get the meringue quite like yours but you'll be encouraging us from above. Today and everyday we celebrate your life and the wonderful family that you created, here's to you Grandma. I love you more than words. 
-Kim

Since the evening mom passed away there hasn't been a day where I don't think about her. I miss her so much. I do find comfort knowing she's in Heaven with grandpa and grandma and her brother and sister.
 In a quiet moment a couple days before she passed, we were sitting there alone holding hands. She was still able to talk so we were just chatting. She told me she had a terrific life full of fun and her family. I don't remember what I said but I made her laugh. That's what I loved the most about mom. No matter how she was feeling, her sense of humor was just below the surface, ready to come bubbling up at any time. She was so selfless and seldom complained when she hurt or was upset. She always wanted to know how things were going with me. She had such compassion and loved her family.
I know I put her through hell when I was younger. No matter what I did, no matter how hurtful or stupid I was, she never turned her back on me and loved me unconditionally. She told me so many times during my troubled youth that I could do anything I set my mind to. "Instead of drinking do something positive, make something of yourself, you can be anything you want to be."  She was right.
 She was a wonderful person, a wonderful mother.
I miss you mom, I love you.
-Ken

Heaven has gained an amazing woman. And now we celebrate her life. I will miss so much about my Grandma... long talks about her and Bubba's 65+ adorable years together (especially at our wedding), her witty smarts, discussions over books, walking across the street to see her, the smell of coffee filtering in their house, learning to make raspberry jam on warm summer days, giving her hugs, her joy, her soul, and her always valuable advice and wisdom. Although she is missed beyond words, I am happy she spent her last week with family and is at peace now. I will forever love you Grandma!
 
-Lisa

Mom wanted her life to be celebrated, she wanted family, friends and neighbors to gather and celebrate her amazing life. Mom was always there for her kids in good times and bad. She was a remarkable mother and my best friend.  I had the greatest opportunity to have my parents across the street for years. I saw her daily, after work we would sit in the backyard, have a glass of wine and exchange many stories and memories. Mom I miss that. Mom was always there for me in happy times and sad times with her support and wisdom. Mom I miss that. On a rare occasion she would offer her opinion when it wasn't solicited but mostly just there for me whenever I needed her. Mom I miss that. My children and grandchildren got to know their grandmother and form lots of incredible memories, for that I am thankful. Mom I miss that. I have so many great memories with mom. As a child I remember Christmas stockings with gum and an orange, I remember "elbows off the table" and "may I be excused please". As a teenager I remember eating pizza with anchovies in Venice, walking up the leaning tower of Pisa and swimming in the lakes of the Swiss alps! Mom I miss that. I also gave mom some teenage trouble and she still loved and supported me. Mom I miss that.  As an adult we became friends and enjoyed wonderful memories of trips to NY, making homemade jam, shelling peas, eating lobsters in Maine. Mom took me to my first casino, we went to Niagra Falls, touring wineries in Canada, shopping, celebrating holidays, parasailing and so much more. Mom I miss that. These last several years she struggled with cancer, surgery, chemo, radiation and never complained. We spent countless hours at doctors yet she never complained. I told her she was a tough old bird. Mom I miss that. Mom I love you so much, thanks for being such a wonderful mom. Mom I miss you
-Karen

As the oldest child in the family, I knew Mom longer than just about everybody except Dad of course. One of the first clear memories from my early childhood was when we lived in downtown Syracuse in a big old wooden house divided into apartments. Some young kids were playing in the backyard and climbing up a small tree. A branch broke and one kid impaled his leg on the jagged wood. There was a lot of blood and all the kids were running around screaming that he was going to die. Mom came running outside to see what was going on and quickly assessed the situation, cleaned and bandaged the wound and got everybody calmed down. Later, when the kid's mother found out about what happened, she was extremely grateful to Mom.
Soon after we moved to Seneca Knolls, a brand new housing development of modest starter houses near Baldwinsville, NY, just before I started kindergarten. Seneca Knolls was full of young families with lots of kids in similar economic circumstances. I think my folks were quite happy there even though they did not have much money. I remember being embarrassed that we lived in such a small house compared to the town kids that lived in big old historic houses in downtown Baldwinsville. It was especially humiliating to me that Mom sewed a lot of my clothes when the other kids were wearing store-bought clothes. I know now that she was trying to help raise her family and provide all of us kids with the best she could, but I didn't see that at the time.
After seventh grade, with the full contingent of four kids, we moved to Flanders, NJ. I went to West Morris Regional H.S. It was the sixties and wild time all over the country, especially with young people and the whole sex and drugs and rock and roll thing, and the Vietnam war. I got into trouble with some of that stuff and I know I hurt my parents. Now it doesn't seem to be such a big deal but I was the oldest and blazing the trail as a teenager. Mom came from a very straight-laced background as the daughter of a Methodist minister. I know all of us kids hurt my parents at various times and various ways, and I regret that. But I think everybody turned out OK and Mom and Dad survived the task of raising us kids. 
At some point when we lived in NJ, Mom went back to school to get her degree in nursing so she could get a better job and help more with the family finances. I know it must have been hard to go to school with a husband and four kids but she excelled in school. Then as a nurse she worked on the night shift so somebody could be home when the kids were around. I have never worked a night shift and don't think that I could do it, but Mom sacrificed her energy and sleep in order to help the family.
After I graduated high school, I had no intention of going to college. Instead I was going to ride around the country on my motorcycle. It was great for about two weeks until I ran out of money. So I started to work in the dairy department at Foodtown, a local grocery store. The boss said I had great potential in the company, but I knew it wasn't anything that I wanted to do for a career. So I applied to college at Rutgers, the state university of NJ. I remember one day while I was working at Foodtown, Mom came into the store looking for me. She had a big smile was carrying an envelope sent from Rutgers that she wanted me to open on the spot. I was admitted, and decided to go to college. 
The day I left for my freshman year at Rutgers in 1973 when I was 19 years old was the last day I ever lived at home on a full time basis. I did spend one summer after my freshman year at home, and then a summer in the Netherlands, where the whole family moved. I remember getting a phone call from Mom at Rutgers in the dormitory where there was a single phone for the whole floor. She said we are moving to the Netherlands and won't be in NJ this coming summer so you will have to find somewhere else to live. I still find it amazing that the Clay family, minus me, picked up and migrated to Europe. It was actually the second time because they had lived in England for several years in the 1950's, where I was born. Once again, I think they did it for the good of the whole family and a brighter economic future. 
At some point they moved back to the US and to Houston. I did my PhD at Duke and then got a post-doc position at the UT in Austin where Caroline and I got married and had a baby. We got to Houston quite a bit and continued visiting from Baton Rouge, where I had a job at LSU. When Mom and Dad retired they moved back to the area of their childhood home in upstate NY and we visited several times, and they came to visit us in Bloomington IN, where we still live. Bloomington is exactly half-way between Syracuse and Houston, so it was a good stopping point. Mom and Dad used to do these long driving trips where they would drive 10 or 12 hours or more per day. I think that they were very happy back in NY with their land, the countryside, relatives living nearby, and their deep roots in the area. They were doing the back to the land thing before it was trendy with their huge garden and massive supplies of firewood to heat the house in winter. And Mom still worked as a nurse and met Anita, who later became part of the family as well. 
Eventually the hard winters became too hard and they moved back to Houston. We got a chance to visit fairly regularly. I don't think our two boys knew they had so many relatives, and mostly in Houston.
Time passes, people get older and our jobs and community become more of a focus. I tried to make a point of visiting more frequently over the past several years. Mom was fighting cancer and it seemed that every positive result was soon followed by a recurrence. I know it was hard on her, and relentless. I am grateful that my other siblings were nearby and could help more than I could. She was very frail towards the end but was still sharp and opinionated. This past summer Mom and Dad visited us for a week in Sarasota, Florida. I know it was hard travelling, working their way through airports and climbing in and out of cars but I think they enjoyed it. When we dropped them off at the Tampa Airport for their flight home, I got in an argument with Mom that she should ride in a wheelchair with an attendant to go through check-in. I said don't be stupid and use the wheelchair. She refused, saying she could walk on her own and that she didn't need a wheelchair. And she didn't want us to come to the gate to see them off. I remember watching her go into the check-in area and thinking that this might be the last time I see her alive. I felt really bad and called here a few days later with my apologies. I am so happy that I got to see her again last month. I would have regretted forever if our last encounter was an argument. But that was Mom. She was strong-willed and stubborn, and persevered when many other people would have given up. We miss her.

OBITUARY

Jane B Clay

October 26, 1932 – September 14, 2015

Earthman Southwest Funeral Home

Show your support

Add a Memory

Share Obituary

Get Reminders

Services