Jane Kellogg

Jane Bartlett Kellogg

December 18, 1925 - January 12, 2025

Jane Bartlett Kellogg died after a short illness on January 12 in New Haven, Connecticut, with her three daughters by her side, just weeks after celebrating her 99th birthday.

Jane had a great passion for life and for people. Her many interests and connections to family and friends remained vitally important to her throughout her long life. She was a devoted mother, grandmother, and friend who delighted in the time she spent with her wide circle. She had a gift for drawing out the best in others with her loving care and embracing acceptance of them.

Jane was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Beula Maud (Post) Kellogg and Robert Kellogg, and sister of Coribel Walker Needham, who predeceased her. Her mother was an accomplished painter and her father a concert master who managed a popular concert series that brought pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff, singer Marian Anderson, and a teenaged Yehudi Menuin, violinist, to Hartford. Jane loved to tell the story of how Menuin slid down the banister of the main staircase in her home when he came to visit. Her family roots in Connecticut go back to Stephen Post, a founder of Hartford in 1636 who worked as a carpenter and the early town's constable. Her grandfather, Edward Kellogg, was a physician whose patients included Mark Twain and his family.

Jane grew up in West Hartford and spent a number of summers at her beloved Camp Penko in Winthrop, Maine. She lost both parents at a young age and went to live with her older sister and her family in Naugatuck. She often said that she was blessed with two mothers. She graduated from Saint Margaret's (Chase Collegiate School) in Waterbury.

During World War II, Jane worked on an assembly line at a safety pin plant producing anti-aircraft gun parts as part of the war effort. In 1945, she completed her Associate in Arts degree at Vermont Junior College. She was a case aide for the American Red Cross in Connecticut before moving to New York City, where she loved working at Rockefeller Center for Marsh Tours. She subsequently served as the administrator for the Psychiatric Clinic at Roosevelt Hospital.

Jane was married to Lewis Towler in 1955 at Church of the Ascension in New York. They moved to Michigan where Lew, an Episcopal priest, took his first position serving as rector of All Saint's in Pontiac. Their daughters Katherine (Katie) and Marie were born in Michigan. A third daughter, Leela, was born in New York City, where the family moved in 1963 when Lew joined the faculty at General Theological Seminary.

Jane raised her three daughters and supported Lew's work at the Seminary while doing volunteer work and enjoying the cultural riches of New York. She especially cherished trips to the city's museums, including her favorite, the Frick Museum. In those days, children under twelve were not allowed to visit the Frick. Her older daughters eagerly awaited their twelfth birthdays when they were treated to a trip with their mother to this special place. In the years living at General Seminary, Jane developed a lifelong passion for gardening and horticulture when she served on the community's garden committee.

The family moved back to Michigan in 1973, where Jane studied horticultural therapy at Michigan State University. Similar to art therapy, this innovative approach, pioneered at that time, works with patients in various settings, using plants and gardening as tools for healing. Jane went on to develop and administer a horticultural therapy program at St. Joseph's Hospital and to create a manual used by facilities across the country.

After her marriage ended in divorce, Jane moved back to Connecticut and lived in New Haven and Hamden for 43 years. She worked for Planned Parenthood as a counselor in their New Haven clinic for many years, retiring at the age of 72. This job that drew on her background in health care was one she found particularly fulfilling. She especially valued working with young women and knowing that women's and reproductive rights were at the heart of what she did each day.

After her retirement, Jane pursued her interest in writing and wrote a fictionalized account of the life of her grandfather, Edward Kellogg. She met regularly with her writing group and produced many memoir pieces and poems. Her writing captures the wonder and joy she took in daily life and its transcendent moments, a characteristic that made her beloved to many. She was always looking for what she called "pockets of beauty."

A lifelong Episcopalian, Jane was a member of Trinity on the Green in New Haven, where she sang with the Spirit Singers and served as a healing minister. Her church community and her faith were great sources of strength and sustenance.

For more than 70 years, Jane spent summers at Quonochontaug in Rhode Island, where her Quonnie friends were a second family. Treasured vacations at Quonnie, with days full of swimming, walks to the breachway, and dinners of corn on the cob and lobster on the porch, were among her happiest times and memories.

Up until the last six months of her life, when family came to stay with her, Jane lived independently in her apartment in Hamden. She remained powerfully present and engaged with family, friends, and caregivers to her final days. On the last morning of her life, she asked to watch the PBS show Finding Your Roots, a request that reflected her abiding interest in history, current events, and the power of human stories. Her resilience, good spirit, humor, empathy, loyalty, and love were an inspiration to others throughout her life. These traits, especially evident in her final months and days, are an enduring gift and legacy.

Jane was predeceased by her parents and sister; her nieces Sarah (Walker) Faeth and Carol (Walker) Arnold; her grand nephews Phillip Arnold, Robert Faeth, and Peter Faeth; and her former husband Lewis Towler. She is survived by her daughters and sons-in-law, Katherine Towler and Jim Sparrell (Portsmouth, NH), Marie Towler (Topanga, CA), and Leela and David Kausch (Ann Arbor, MI); her grandchildren Jack Kausch (London, Ontario, Canada) and Eve Kausch (Mont Vernon, OH); and grand nephews and nieces Robert (and Sara) Arnold, Brad (and Kirsten) Arnold, Sara Faeth, Tom Faeth, Michael (and Teresa) Faeth, and Christina Faeth.

A memorial service will be held at Trinity on the Green at 230 Temple Street in New Haven on February 1 at 11:00 a.m., followed by a luncheon reception at the church. To watch a live-stream of the service, go to this link on the church website: https://www.trinitynewhaven.org/jane-kellogg-funeral. Interment at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford will be private. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Trinity on the Green (https://www.trinitynewhaven.org/) or Planned Parenthood of Southern New England (https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-southern-new-england/donate-copy-2).