Jane Harker

Letter From Jane Harker to Family and Friends

My brother Bob has been helping me with my affairs and has asked that we work together to prepare this note to be shared with family and friends at the time of my passing. I “sailed away” on the morning of Friday, May 30, 2025.

I have enjoyed my life, even with my share of trials and tribulations. The most recent years have been challenging with memory issues and not being able to do so many things that I have enjoyed all my life. I have enjoyed living near Lake Michigan, going for walks, visiting with friends and family, tablemates at meal time and going on many of the outings available to us.

I was born November 3, 1940, second daughter to John Edward Harker and Iola Stephens Harker, at the hospital in Shullsburg, Wisconsin. My older sister Frances was three. We lived on the Meginn farm. My brother Jim was born in 1943 and my brother Bob was born in 1947. I attended the #9 one room country school until we moved to a farm near Elk Grove, Wisconsin. There I attended the Elk Grove School and later the new West School. We moved again to a farm in Jenkinsville, Wisconsin. I attended Cuba City High School and graduated from Platteville State University in 1962 with a teaching degree for primary grades kindergarten through third grade.

My first job was teaching kindergarten at Jefferson School in Manitowoc, Wisconsin for three years. In 1965 I took a job for three years at Wing Lane School in the community of La Puente, in the Los Angeles area of California. I had a chance to visit our California relatives and visit many of the sites in the area including Disneyland and a couple of excursions into Mexico. I have enjoyed traveling, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends and sometimes with family.

I returned to Wisconsin in 1968 to teach kindergarten in West Bend, Wisconsin, until my retirement. Summers included visits back home to the farm to help with haying as well as visiting with family and friends in the area. Summers often included travels with friends in the Midwest. Longer excursions included Alaska, traveling across Canada and touring the eastern United States. Two trips to Europe included several countries. My favorite was Ireland.

When I retired, I moved to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to be closer to my sister Frances in Manitowoc and my brother Bob in Sheboygan. Manitowoc is a beautiful city on the Lake Michigan shoreline. I enjoyed volunteering at local elementary schools helping students improve their reading skills. I also enjoyed shelving books and delivering books to “shut-ins” for the local libraries in Manitowoc and Two Rivers. I also enjoyed volunteering for the full day student education programs at the Sheboygan County Historical Museum in Sheboygan and for special events at the Wade House Historic Site in Greenbush, Wisconsin.

I have always enjoyed the fun sense of humor of my aunts and uncles and all my cousins. There have been so many good times, fun conversations and delightful memories. I enjoyed being a part of this and sharing my own sense of humor with them as well as my coworkers and friends.

In 2022, I moved to Angelus, a supported living setting with a small apartment on the second floor that looked out over Lake Michigan. The color of sunrises, sunsets, the everchanging colors of the lake throughout the day, along with a busy round-a-bout at the corner of Waldo Boulevard and Memorial Drive, often several hundred geese on the open grassy spaces, seeing the Lake Michigan ferry, the Badger, arrive at noon and depart at two pm in spring, summer and fall, and occasionally seeing a moon rise from the lake in the early evening. It was all good.

Most recently I have lived at Harbor View Assisted Living and with the added support of Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice, they met the kind of support I needed at this time in my life.

It makes my heart happy as I enjoy the memories of all my years on this voyage called “life on earth”. But it is my time to say goodbye to family and friends. It is my wish that there not be any memorial service or celebration of life for me. I have asked my brother Bob to spread my ashes at a quiet place along the beautiful Manitowoc River.

Expressions of sympathy can be made to the family by visiting www.lakeshorefamilyfuneralhomes.com

Lakeshore Family Funeral Homes, Pfeffer Funeral Home of Manitowoc, WI is assisting the family with arrangements.

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