Jane Mack

Jane Mack age 85 of New Hampton,IA, formerly of Lexington, Massachusetts, died Friday, May 11, 2012, at her home. Friends may greet the family 4:00 - 7:00 p.m. Saturday, June 2, at Hugeback - Johnson Funeral Home in New Hampton. A Memorial Reflection will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the funeral home on Saturday. Private family inurnment will take place in France. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Odyssey of the Mind c/o New Hampton Community School. Jane Cridland Mack was born November 23, 1926, In Philadelphia, PA, the daughter of George and Estelle (Heyland) Cridland. She was the youngest of three children and took on the role of jokester and gofer. She grew up in the Philadelphia area and graduated in a class of 520 from Upper Darby High School in 1944. She attended the University of Minnesota then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where she obtained a BSN (Nursing) in 1949. She worked at the University Of Pennsylvania Hospital where she taught nursing and met Charles L. Mack, a graduate student in physics. They married on June 10, 1950. On April 25, 1951, they had twin girls. Charles obtained employment as a physicist at Lincoln Lab for Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston in 1953. Another daughter was born August 2, 1954 followed by a son on September 6, 1956. In 1957, she and her family moved to Paris, France because Chuck was working on an MIT project for NATO there. She returned to the Boston area in 1959 and worked at area hospitals as an RN. She became interested in early childhood devcelopment and took further training at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania in early childhood education. In 1963, she founded the Lexington Montessori School with a few interested parents and served as its headmistress through 1991. Under her leadership the school expanded to 200 students from age 1 through sixth grade. The school built a lower elementary building in 1990 and named it in her honor. On the 25th anniversary of the school she was recognized by then Governor Michael Dukakis for her “outstanding contribution to the field of child development”. She was published in a number of professional journals and served as national chairperson of the teachers in the American Montessori Society from 1972-1976. Jane had time for sports after her children left home and developed into a competitive tennis player. She ran and completed the Boston Marathon at the age of 58. In the summer of 1995, she assisted with the Belamerica Day Camp held in New Hampton. She appeared in the ‘Who’s Who’ in American Education in 1996 and 1997. She retired as a teacher of the toddler class of Lexington Montessori School in 2000. Jane loved to travel and took extensive trips with Overseas Adventures to Russia, China, Tibet and India. She became the volunteer director of admissions for a small nursing home, tutored elementary students and substitute taught in before moving to Iowa in the summer of 2006. She initially lived in Iowa City before settling in New Hampton. In the 2007-2008 school year she informally volunteered with Mrs. Nobisch’s kindergarten class where she became known as ‘Grandma Jane’. She was a foster grandparent volunteer at New Hampton Elementary School for 4th grade in 2009-2010 and kindergarten in 2010-2011. In this time span, she visited her daughters safari camp north of Nairobi, and traveled to France, Ukraine, Italy and a number of U.S. states including Alaska. She loved spending time with her family with a special focus of course on the great-grandbabies and toddlers. Jane is survived by one son, David (Amy) Mack of San Francisco; three daughters, Judy (Kit) O’Donohoe of New Hampton, Jacqueline (J.F.) Damon of Nairobi, Kenya; Nancy (Paul) Millice of Iowa City; nine grandchildren, Jennifer (Eyal) O’Donohoe of Salt Lake City, UT, Lisa Damon of Paris, France; Val (Stephane) Damon-Perrier of Nairobi, Kenya, Emily (Russ) O’Donohoe of San Francisco, B.J. McDuffie of Washington, D.C. Warren (Adriane) McDuffie of Iowa City, Brian Mack, Daniel Mack, both of San Francisco, Masha (Leo) Simmons of Minneapolis; eight great-grandchildren, Niko Simmons, Hugo Perrier, Alex McDuffie, Cayden McDuffie, Lillian Bainer, Ethan Shafran, Lea Perrier and Chloe Perrier. She was preceded in death by her husband, Charles Lawrence Mack; one brother, Charles Cridland; one sister, Ruth Tuppeny.