Jane Bainbridge

1932 - 2024

News Story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Jane Bainbridge, a Toledo teacher and inveterate world traveler who enjoyed choral singing, died Jan. 11 at Otterbein Sunset Village in Sylvania Township. She was 91.

She hadn't recovered after a fall several weeks ago, her niece Joyce Fort said. She lived for more than a decade at West Park Place senior community in West Toledo.

Miss Bainbridge retired from the Toledo Public Schools. During her career, she taught science and physical education at such schools as McKinley, DeVeaux, Old Orchard.

"Teaching is all she ever wanted to do," Mrs. Fort said. "She enjoyed young people."

Jeanne Sonnenberg, a retired teacher who became a friend and travel companion, said: "She was very conscientious about all her work, that things be right and proper."

Travel was an enduring interest. She and Miss Sonnenberg went to Africa, Australia, and Asia together.

"We got along very well," said Miss Sonnenberg, 98, who sang in the choir of St. Paul's Lutheran Church downtown, as did Miss Bainbridge.

One secret to their compatibility: If what they wanted to do at a destination didn't match, "she would do what she wanted, and I would do what I wanted," she said. "She was interested in train engines. I'd go have my hair done, so she could go look at trains. We always had a good time together."

Miss Bainbridge through the years also traveled to Europe, North Africa, and across Canada.

"She was a quintessential teacher who studied and got experience on her vacations," said Randy Dixon, her attorney. "She had a way about her. She was direct, but she would make direct statements with a wink."

For decades, she used the services of Taylor Tours, taking motor coach tours, whether multi-day excursions or one-day outings to Amish country or an afternoon dinner theater production, said Cathy Taylor, who started working for her parents, Sally and Ted Taylor, in 1997, and got to to know Miss Bainbridge.

"She met a lot of new people on the bus who became friends," said Ms. Taylor, now the owner. "She was a very outgoing lady."

Mrs. Fort added: "If you had something in common with her, she was going to make friends with you."

A Blade article from 1953 noted Miss Bainbridge and her Omega Chi sorority sisters from the University of Toledo were on a western motor trip, with sightseeing stops sites in Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico, and visits to sorority houses in college towns along the way. A 1958 Blade item mentioned her return from two weeks of swimming, skin diving, and bicycling in Bermuda. In 1961, she joined her brother, Earl, and his family for a weeks-long trip to California in a converted 1939 school bus. A 1962 society column noted that Miss Bainbridge was among Toledoans attending the Seattle World's Fair.

"She was a very busy lady," Mrs. Fort, who recalled childhood outings with her aunt to Disney movies or school fairs or to go bowling. Later, when Mrs. Fort and her husband, Glen, visited from Florida, Miss Bainbridge took them to the Toledo Museum of Art or Put-in-Bay or Windsor, Ont.

"She was our tour guide, and she was very good at that," Mrs. Fort said.

Jane Arlene Bainbridge was born May 2, 1932, to Bernardine and Earl Bainbridge, the second of their two children. She grew up in West Toledo and was a 1950 graduate of DeVilbiss High School. She received her bachelor's degree in education from UT in 1954 and, later, a master's degree.

She enjoyed music and singing and, for years, was a member of the Toledo Choral Society.

"She was an alto and a very loyal, regular member of the group," said Judy Szor, a choral society member, whose late husband, Samuel Szor, was choral society director from 1958-2012.

"She was just a delightful person," said Mrs. Szor, a past president and past board member. "She seemed always to be in a good mood, an uplifting-type of a person. She liked being part of the group."

A regular visitor to western Massachusetts, Miss Bainbridge also sang with the Berkshire Choral Festival.

There are no immediate survivors.

Memorial services will be at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at West Park Place, 3501 Executive Pkwy. Arrangements are by the Ansberg-West Funeral Home.

Tributes are suggested to the organ fund at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 428 N. Erie St., Toledo, 43604.