Jane M. Van Buskirk

Jane Morgan Van Buskirk, the wife of Robert (“Bob”) Van Buskirk and mother of David and Bruce, was in many ways also a mother to many of her sons’ friends as well as to the friends she made through her long attachment to Park Hill Congregational Church. Upon learning of her passing, David’s friend Christopher wrote, “What I remember most about your mom is how she never judged anyone. I will always picture her on Christmas Eve at her church surrounded by people who loved and admired her.” Another of David’s friends once asked Jane if she would adopt him.

Jane graduated from high school in Shreveport, LA, and then studied to be a secretary, a fairly traditional route for a young woman just after the end of WWII. She moved to Salt Lake City to get away from the confining restrictions of home and the Deep South. It was there while working at the only non-Mormon newspaper in town that she met Bob, just returned from the war and a year’s confinement in a German POW camp. They got married after three months of courtship; that short romance seemed surprising to her boys, but whenever asked about it she laughed and said, “I always told my children to do as I said not as I did.”

Jane held the traditional role as a homemaker and mother for the early years of her marriage. While it was undoubtedly a struggle living with three males, she did it with flair and aplomb. She didn’t “work” in the traditional sense, but she was an independent thinker and there was no ceding judgment or deferring to her husband’s opinions. She augmented her work in the home with involvement in neighborhood issues of equal housing and public education.

Jane had a passionate love of classical music, in particular opera. You could always count on her being in front of the radio during every Metropolitan Opera broadcast. While her tastes were fairly traditional, in the later years she attended many premiers and modern operas. She always regretted not being able to see Woyzeck. She and Bob also shared a love of great Broadway musicals and took the boys to see The Music Man, Camelot, 110 Degrees in the Shade, The Fantasticks, and others.

Jane’s many artistic gifts were manifested in the elegant clothes and stunning embroideries she made. A capstone of these artistic achievements is a large embroidery of wildflowers of her own design and color arrangement that she created as a tribute to the wildflowers she saw on walks in the forest around her beloved mountain cabin near Devil’s Head; its composition and color design are sophisticated and elegant, and the technical stitching both virtuosic and inventive. Her children’s artistic accomplishments in art and music reflect the artistic gifts that she and Bob had. While Jane may have had limited means or opportunities to pursue her own creative endeavors, she and Bob did everything to encourage their boys by paying for music lessons and art classes, driving to lessons, enduring student recitals, and hanging up weird pieces of art on the refrigerator. Jane took piano lessons for the first time in her 50s, and was a long-standing volunteer for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, helping to craft the detailed flora created for the museum’s beautiful dioramas.

Jane was a committed member of the Park Hill Congregational Church. She served in myriad roles throughout more than 60 years with the church, including church secretary, deacon, Sunday School teacher, choir member, and on pastoral search committees and Church Council, to name just a few. It was through the church that she made the majority of her most enduring friendships, and as her contemporaries moved away or passed away, she had that rare ability to make deep friendships with those who were many years younger.

Jane is survived by her two sons, David and Bruce; her nieces, Joanne and Beth (and Beth’s two daughters, Anna and Linda); and her nephew, Willie (and Willie’s two sons, Dan and Brian). She led a modest but abundant life filled with family, many good friends, excellent food, much laughter, and beautiful music. It was a life well lived, and she is missed by all who knew her.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Senior Support Services in Denver.