Jane Howard Guernsey

1927 - 2022

Summer afternoons spent with family on the dock at Richmond Pond, the hustle and bustle of the Howard Store in Pittsfield, the splendor of the Cornaro Window at Vassar College and a love of good writing were in her DNA.

Jane, aged 95, a daughter of her beloved Berkshire mountains, born in Pittsfield to Arthur and Louise Howard, passed away peacefully on September 18, 2022. She was fortunate to have her youngest daughter Susan at her bedside reading to her from Jane's biography of the first woman in history to earn a Ph.D, who is depicted in that window, entitled The Lady Cornaro.

Jane married William Hill Guernsey, a Chicago native, in 1953, and they were devoted to each other until Bill's death in 2006. They adored their bright first born, Anne, were entertained by their rebel ballerina, Jane, and thunderstruck by the glorious Susan, their youngest child. Jane always considered herself the luckiest gal in the world to have grown up with her own sisters, the late Barbara Fehlmann and Holly Stover, who still resides in Richmond.

Jane was a cheerleader at Pittsfield High and a proud member of the Class of 49 at Vassar. She was inspired to write the story of the Lady Elena Cornaro by her image in the aforementioned stained glass window in Vassar's library.

A favorite poet of Jane's, the satirical Ogden Nash, once wrote that "Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore, And that's what parents were created for." But with age comes wisdom and the realization of just how precious those moments were with our mother!