Ann Kane Obituary
Ann Elizabeth Kane (née Andrews) was born January 30, 1925 to pre-eminent Shaker scholars and collectors Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews. Along with older brother David, she grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the same house where their father was born.
Ann graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a Bachelors of Science in Clinical Psychology. She received her Master's from Columbia University Teacher's College in New York, living at NYC's renowned International House. At I-House she became friends with students from all over the world. Together they traversed the city, often visiting the jazz clubs in Harlem.
She went on a blind date with Thomas Kane and another couple, for dinner and dancing at Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Ann and Tom were immediately taken with one another and were married the following June. Their honeymoon included a long motorcycle trip in Europe visiting places where Viennese-born Tom had spent his childhood.
After Tom completed his PhD at Columbia he became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Their daughter Linda was born soon after, followed two years later by their son Jeffrey. The family spent a year in England, where Ann earned an MS in the University of Manchester's program for education of the deaf. Once back in the U.S. she devoted her energies to teaching Jeffrey, as well as other deaf children whose parents sought her out.
When Tom joined the Stanford faculty in 1961, the family moved to Palo Alto. They took every opportunity to enjoy all that their new home in California had to offer: day trips to the coast, hiking in the foothills, camping all over the state. After their children were grown Ann and Tom spent weeks backpacking in the Sierras, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, often accompanied by Tom's graduate students. They also hiked along England's Pennine Way, across the Auvergne in France, and from hut to hut in the Austrian Alps. They explored archaeological sites around the world: Pompeii, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, Ephesus, the Pyramids, Chichen Itza.
Ann will be remembered as a bright, energetic and cheerful person, always gracious and welcoming to those who visited her home, generous with her time. She passed away peacefully in the early morning hours of June 20, 2020. Ann was predeceased by her brother David Andrews in 1988, husband Thomas Kane in 2019 and son Jeffrey Kane in 2014. She is survived by daughter Linda Kane, granddaughter Elisabeth Kane, as well as several nieces and nephews, their spouses and children.
Published by The Berkshire Eagle on Sep. 27, 2020.