Dudley, Jane (Gerow-Olson) 1918-2003

DUDLEY, GEROW, SMITH, EISENHOWER, OLSON, FRANKEL, GALM

Posted By: Debbie Nash (email)
Date: 10/31/2003 at 22:33:26

Jane Gerow Dudley
October 30, 2003

Jane Gerow Dudley, 85, of Fairfield died Saturday, Oct. 25, 2003, at SunnyBrook Assisted Living, where she had lived since 1998.

A celebration of her life will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at the McElhinny House.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Maine Audubon Society Schoodic Chapter, 20 Gilsland Farm Road, Falmouth, ME 04105.

Mrs. Dudley was born Sept. 7, 1918, in East Orange, N.J., the daughter of Clifford Cooley and Constance Irene Smith Gerow.

Mrs. Dudley lived in the Chicago area from 1956-1969. She was an award winning reporter and photographer for the Southwest News Herald, Downers Grove Reporter and Suburban Life newspapers, where she worked with Earl Eisenhower, brother of the president.

Mrs. Dudley was a journalist and poet, a naturalist and an artist. She lived for many years with her husband Jack in a spuce cabin built in 1910 on the shores of Lake Pocomoonshine in Alexander, Maine. During that time, she wrote columns such as "Nature Path," "Garden-in-the-Woods," and "After 70" from 1970-1992 for several publications. She also had been featured in articles appearing in Yankee Magazine, Yankee Magazine Cookbook and the Eloquent Age: Fifteen Maine Writers.

In addition to her columns, she was the president and founder of the Maine Alexander-Crawford Historical Society and wrote its newsletter for many years. She was a longtime editor for the Schoodic Chapter Maine Audubon newspaper and the plants editor of Guillemot magazine. She also conducted guided Audubon flower trips by canoe around Pocomoonshine Lake and she gave slide presentations of her nature photography in an effort to help local school children appreciate nature.

Mrs. Dudley also received many prizes for her work from organizations such as The Illinois Womens Press Association, the Poetry Fellowship of Maine and Blue Moon Magazine.

Mrs. Dudley moved to SunnyBrook in 1998 when she moved to Fairfield from Connecticut and Maine to be closer to her daughter.

Survivors include one son, Richard Ragnar Olson and wife Emily of South Windson, Conn.; one daughter, Constance Olson of Fairfield; two grandchildren; and one sister, Lois Gerow Frankel of Hanover, N.H.

She was preceded in death by two husbands, J. Edward Olson and John Jack Murchie Dudley; one sister, Ruth Galm; and one brother, Arthur Gerow.

Courtesy of the Fairfield Daily Ledger Inc. 2003