WINIFRED MARY JANE March 31, 1922- Sept. 7, 2004

My Mother Winnie was born into the Jane family on March 31, 1922, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Second of four daughters, Caroline, Ethel and Irma Mae of William and Beatrice Jane.

Ethel Jane and her husband Ed Feist reside in Medford, Oregon and Irma Mae and her husband Bob Johnston still live in Pennsylvania near where they grew up.

As her mother Beatrice was a devote Catholic she and her sisters were raised in the Catholic tradition attending Catholic schools where they all graduated. Mother was left handed in school and I remember her on several occasions talking about how she would get bopped on the knuckles for it. She was no longer left handed.

Grandma Jane had a great backyard garden; I remember it backed up to a cemetery. Mom would tell me stories of her and her sisters working in the garden every summer and then they would go out and sell all the fruits of their labors around the neighborhood. She didn?t like doing it, but it sounds fun to me.

Winnie was a beautiful young woman when she married my father, Lawrence A. Simms in 1942, just before the war years. When the war broke out dad went into the service and mom traveled along with him. Fortunately, they did not have to leave the States. Then war ended and before I came along, they had a pretty good old time camping on Lake Erie, drinking beers and playing poker in the back yard with friends and family, going on road trips and the such, sometimes with here sisters and their husbands and sometimes with his brothers and sisters. I know because I saw the evidence, they took lots of pictures; Actually, Dad was kind of a fun seeker, if you know what I mean.

Mom got pregnant two times before I arrived. Unfortunately, the two boys did not survive. But at last I came along in 1950, her only daughter, and mom was ecstatic, Of course. Mom was lucky too, I was an easy child to raise.

Then in 1952 my brother Larry was born. Larry was a sweet brother and a nice and handsome man, Mom adored him and I did too. He gave mom two grandsons, Travis now 28 years old, living in Oregon and Shawn 18, living in Arizona. To our overwhelming sadness we lost Larry in 1989 of Pneumonia. I don?t think mom ever got over it. Me too.

In 1957 we moved from Pennsylvania, leaving good friends who she still kept in contact with, following Aunt Ethel and Uncle Ed , eventually to settle in Torrance, California. Mom worked for thirteen years at Farr Company in El Segundo in the accounting department. She retired from office work when she and my dad moved into a retirement mobile home community in Dominguez Hills. She made many friends their and played huge amounts of bingo.

After a short time and to her extreme pleasure she became a nanny to the Ford family in Long Beach. They had two lovely daughters Megan and Mary that she loved like her own grandchildren and who love her to this day even though she left and retired after ten years with them to move with me to Orange County, California where we have been living for the last five years.

Mom didn?t like the first place we bought, where we lived for two years. She did like the second one a little better, it was bigger but she had to do laundry down stairs. Oh how she hated that. But I know she was very comfortable in the home we purchased a year ago. We were able to find a place for her with a downstairs bedroom and laundry room, her car just outside the door and a back yard for the dogs to play and for her to sit and watch them while she worked on her crossword puzzles. She wasn?t too crazy for animals but she put up with them because she knew I loved them. Even so, they, and all my animals, horses, birds, dogs, cats, loved her and the ones yet surviving are now sad too. They are looking for her all over the house?.

Mom, you left us too soon, too suddenly. I miss you so.

Jayne