“Always have something to say and have your principles ready. You can reach back and be ready to go.”
There were indications, even in childhood, that Jane would grow into the unusually reflective and committed adult who always had those principles ready. Born in the American Midwest as an only child to two 44-year-olds, Jane soon lost her mother to cancer. Her father’s older sister Edith - a first grade teacher - then joined the family; Edith quit her job and contributed her pension and presence to help support the family, which moved to (then very rural) Kirkland, Washington. Jane loved walking in the nearby woods with her beloved dog Rusty; she even took to sneaking Rusty in and out her bedroom window twice daily unbeknownst to the adults. Is this where her love of animal companions began?
Jane also loved learning and was good at it. Others took notice. When she didn’t get accepted into a private Seattle high school (as no one had helped her undertake or even understand that extra-curricular activities were requirements for entry) the school administration realized it was in their interest to feature this brilliant student as one of theirs, and so themselves coaxed tuition from other families to grant Jane a full scholarship. In that setting, Jane excelled in writing, history, and leadership. Her graduation photo from that school was accompanied by a quote that would easily describe Jane throughout her entire life: “Her wing’d spirit is feathered ofttimes with heavenly words.” Her record over high school ensured that Jane was further awarded a full scholarship to attend the prestigious all-female college Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania. Her father, with his conservative views, was opposed to her attendance, so Jane garnered the support of her school counsellor to convince him to permit her to go. Bryn Mawr was a liberating experience for Jane and provided a lifelong foundation for her pursuits of scholarly study, reading widely, writing and editing.
Before she graduated from Bryn Mawr, however, two significant events occurred beyond campus that affected her deeply. During her studies, Jane undertook to visit her cousin Phil and his wife in Greece, where he was the US Ambassador to Greece and Crete. This introduction both to international travel and to the politics of the Mediterranean nations would prove deeply consequential over time. Then, in Jane’s senior year, her father died. Jane found herself 20 years old, with a small sum of money ($1800), and a new degree, and set off to travel to Europe. Over the next 15 months, she travelled widely and apparently fearlessly. Much of that time Jane lived in London, in a rooming house with no heat. In the daytime, her longtime habits of walking took her exploring the city and often arriving to read in the National Library, where there was heat. In time she met David Power, whom she married, and together they returned to the United States. As Jane put it, at this point she “started collecting master’s degrees” and undertook a Masters of English from the University of Virginia. Although Jane completed this degree, the marriage did not last, and when David died in 1966, they had not been together for some time.
In 1965, Jane had started work with the National Education Association (NEA). She stayed for 30 years, becoming editor of the NEA’s magazine for teachers. Jane described this work in a characteristically thoughtful analysis: “I was a consumer of education. Getting to know about production was the opposite. I was accustomed to education with a small ‘e’ and all of a sudden, I was dealing with Education with a capital ‘E,’ the industry of education. Not just teaching somebody something, but that it was a profession, going through a defined process and that you would follow guidelines, a profession people qualify for and get admitted to. Earning money by doing that made me very happy…”
A few years into that job, Jane was ready for more focused research herself, and enrolled in the Washington, DC based Antioch Graduate School of Education. Antioch had decided to open this teachers’ college intending to have a Black nationalist branch; what they got, Jane said, was “primarily a Black red branch.” In the fall of that first year of her new masters, Jane enrolled in a class taught by Jack O’Dell, and her life took another major turn. As Jane pursued her research (an MEd in History Education, with a thesis on the Japanese Teacher’s Union), Jack and Jane began to meet socially. Thinking Jane - elegant, stylish, graceful and extraordinarily self-possessed - was a dancer, Jack suggested going to the ballet (though neither much cared for ballet, and Jack found out Jane wasn’t a dancer). A following date was to The Sorrow and the Pity, as Jack wanted to assess Jane’s responses to hard things in the world. They also went to a talk by Coretta King, and out to dinner afterwards for Indian food. At one point, Jack looked over and asked, “How did you get to be so wonderful?” Jane recounted, “Who could survive an assault like that?” And so began a love affair of many decades - as each other’s “babe” they lived together quite obviously full of love, respect, and total delight in each other - for close to half a century.
The first twenty years of their relationship were full of extensive travels, substantive work, close collaboration, and profound friendships across several continents. Both were steeped in lifelong dedication to organizing for many progressive movements; Jane in particular made determinate contributions for peace, civil rights, and gender equality. Jane and Jack both shared beliefs and practice around organizing in broad-based coalitions and personally exemplified qualities that help sustain such entities: humility, dignity, and compassion. The communities of people touched and changed from this work remain alive around the world. Perhaps it is no surprise then, that, upon Jane’s retirement from NEA, Jane and Jack realized a long-standing dream to live outside the US. Marrying on each side of the border at Peace Arch Park (where Paul Robeson had performed free for the public unable to traverse the border himself), they settled in Vancouver, Canada in 1992.
In “retirement,” Jane undertook (and completed) a PhD in history. This time her research focused on Palestinian labour history. Conversation never lagged: “she was always so engaged in happenings both local and global that it meant you could pick up a conversation about historic or present-day Palestine, or about the politics of polarization in the US, and without missing a beat she would be pushing the dialogue and conversation in directions you wouldn’t expect but that clearly reflected her deepest commitments for a just world.” We can all imagine, while hearing Jane’s voice in our minds, the conversations that we would be having with her about the current state of affairs in Gaza.
Indeed, to know Jane and Jack’s household in the 1990s and 2000s was to be engaged in a constant and ever-evolving conversation, set of actions, and relationships bridging politics (of many countries), education, literature, theatre, music, baseball, films and legendary breakfasts. One nearby B and B, and another cafe, owe much of their traffic to all the guests gathered by Jane and Jack over some 20 years. Visitors from around the world and all across town were constant and welcome; friendships flourished whether they arose from apartment neighbours, political campaigns, church friends, university communities, volunteer service days, demonstrations, long walks “out on the town,” or simply substantive conversations about the daily issues of living in Vancouver, raising families, sorting out jobs and health and shelter and setbacks.
Since Jack’s death in 2019, Jane kept up the cherished weekly Sunday evening Zoom conversations with those she called her “dear ones” from the Institute for Community Leadership and the Jack O’Dell Education Center (in Kent, Washington). ICL says these talks with Jane were foundational conversations about social justice issues for the ICL students who were as adored by Jane as she was by them. She delighted in phone conversations with friends from near and far and with members of Jack’s family in the United States. Jane especially loved speaking with Jack’s brother, Edwin - he reminded her so much of Jack with his kindness and “gentlemanly” ways.
Jane had a tremendously loving team of caregivers over the last few years of her life, and she referred to them and to her close friends in Vancouver as her “Circle of Protection.” There were also the lifelong friends living too far away for an in-person hug who regularly shared phone conversations with Jane. Jane knew that she was loved. It was a full circle experience that stemmed from the care and kindness that Jane and Jack extended to others in good times as well as in profoundly hard ones. As one friend wrote after Jane’s death, “you knew that being a friend of Jane’s was to be cared about.” Jane herself said “Letting someone know how they are needed could save them…” which rings true in this account: “I was just out of a long term and unhealthy relationship, and with little prospects for employment. We were out for a walk near their home, and [Jane and Jack] just had this way of conveying profound hope about the future to me in a time of deep personal despair. I’ll always be so grateful.”
For friends who were lucky enough to live nearby, it was a special treat to visit with Jane over a cup of tea and cookies and deeply personal chats about the nature of the world we all live in right now. Walking into Jane’s apartment, you would find her sitting in Jack’s red chair with photos of him and of the two of them all within eye lines; Jane often said, “I like looking up and seeing his face looking right back at me.” She enjoyed also being surrounded by stacks of interesting mail, books, and magazines on most surfaces, complete with paper-clipped notes and yellow post-it notes in her precise handwriting - all fodder for new ideas to consider and of thoughts to share in future conversations with others. As one friend noted, “her sense of curiosity and desire to connect just seem so quintessentially Jane to me.”
Jane’s religious faith was profoundly important to her, and sufficiently robust that she brought her usual critical attention to it rather than a rote acceptance. Up until she was physically unable to attend, and even during the enforced distancing of Covid, Jane devoted close and deep reflection on scriptures with her weekly Bible study group, and she maintained strong connections with the pastoral team at the Canadian Memorial United Church. With everyone, she bore quiet witness to the importance in this secular world of having an ethical framework and a mindful acknowledgement of the transcendent. Jane was enormously generous, particularly with those down on their luck or going through difficult times, including a number of folks who really struggled to survive emotionally and materially. She shared this quality with Jack all through the years of their time together. This thoughtfulness was deeply engrained in the daily fabric of friendship with both of them - giving jobs to those in need, pre-arranging a bookstore credit for a struggling student, giving air miles and an interest-free loan to a single Mom in need of emergency travel, offering a seat and hours of quiet, intensely present listening with never a whiff of judgment or impatience, or sending a note (in Jane’s elegant, precise hand) of encouragement or comfort. For those lucky enough to have spent time with them, there isn’t really a day that goes by without thinking of something they taught by example, or revealed about revolutionary patience, humility, gratitude, service, and listening from the head and the heart.
Jane was happiest with her arm around Jack’s shoulders, but her next happiest was with one hand around a cat and the other holding a book, radio softly warbling in the background and a cup of tea at her side. It’s likely cats themselves have a shrine to Jane as one of the all-time most wonderful humans to live with, as she rescued them from war zones and shelters, and attended to their favourite foibles, perches and toys with devout attention. When Jane’s last beloved cat died many months before her own death, she insisted on keeping all of the feline accoutrements just in case another cat found its way onto her lap. While Jane waited for that new companion to show up she turned her attention to the myriad birds that loved the bird seed she provided on the balcony just beside her favourite reading chair. She was charmed by the way they entertained her with their excitement and zeal for the seeds. It was for Jane a perfectly wonderful way to spend time each day.
Jane was pre-deceased by her beloved Jack and all her treasured cats. She is survived by her cousin Nancy Talbot and the many wonderful members of her husband’s family: brother, Edwin O’Dell; sister, Carolyn O’Dell, children, Judith Beatty and Tshaka Lafayette; grandchildren, Nicole and Shacole O’Dell, Imani Dennison, Ariella and Ananda Lafayette; great grandchildren, Robert and Lyurel Newland, Nysheer and Shawn O’Dell; nephews, George, Benjamin and Merrick O’Dell; niece, Brooke Nicole Ogan; cousins, Judy O’Dell and Bernadine McGee. Jane is also survived by many friends who loved her as family and whom she loved in kind.
At Jane’s request, there will be no formal service. In her honour, please meet with a friend to share a conversation, follow current events and learn something to share with another, or donate time or money to a local organization in your own community that speaks to social justice and human dignity in a way that would delight and encourage Jane.
Jane and Jack made plans for their burial together at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, Washington. Lake View Cemetery is a private cemetery located in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighbourhood and is known as “Seattle’s Pioneer Cemetery.” It was founded in 1872 as the Seattle Masonic Cemetery and later renamed for its view of Lake Washington to the east. Jane and Jack will rest in love and peace together.