Jane Adele Olsen

Jane Adele Olsen (Janie) was born May 27, 1953 at Challis, Idaho to Jesse and Georgia Olsen. Her parents owned and operated the country store and post office at Darlington, Idaho. Jane grew up in Darlington, attending schools at Mackay, Idaho, in the heart of Lost River Valley.

She attended Idaho State University where she was a resident assistant in Turner Hall dormitory for two years, and received her B.A, in 1975. She received her M.A from Northern Arizona University, in 1982. She worked in several universities in Idaho and Oregon settling in Chandler, Arizona, where she worked as an student systems implementation consultant for PeopleSoft. Tiring of the travel involved, she worked in the recruitment office at ASU and from there the Mesa City Schools, and Scottsdale Community College, where she retired in 2018.

From each of these places, as well as college, she collected lifelong friends that she kept in touch with over the years. Her home was a cozy refuge and she enjoyed her yard and cooking real old fashioned home cooked meals as well as learning new and more exotic recipes.

Jane loved music and poetry. She wrote and copyrighted numerous songs, mostly in the style of Broadway Musicals, but a few more in the Country genre. After retirement, she spent much time on family history and genealogy, mostly on the Perdue (mother) side, since her father's family was well researched. She was always the one to arrange Zoom calls for birthdays and to get a greeting out on any family birthday.

She adored all her nieces and nephews and kept track of them as they grew up and had careers of their own. She was an instigator for taking them to movies that their parents might not have taken them to, or fishing on the river, or camping. On these outdoor adventures they invariably had a flat tire or something on her dad's blue truck and had to be rescued, making great memories for the kids. What an aunt!

Living in Arizona, she loved going back to Idaho to visit all the old haunts and imagine the life the rest of the family had lived on a cattle range above town before moving to the Darlington Store. She treasured pictures and stories from the rest of her family from life on the ranch.

She died in her home from an unexpected and undetected heart complication on March 5, 2024. She leaves one brother, Tom Olsen (Dorothy) in Boise, Idaho; sister Beverly Wickel in Carson City, Nevada; sister Sharon McKinley (John Bruce) in Yuma, Arizona; and sister Mary Ellett in El Cajon, California.

Her Celebration of Life was held April 13th in Yuma, Arizona. Her ashes will be scattered in Lost River Valley.