Jane Engle

Jane Engle took her own life on Thursday, December 7, 2017. Jane was an Independent Resident at the Collington Life Care Community in Mitchellville, MD, where she had lived since 2003. She is survived by her husband, Kenneth Burton, of Mitchellville, a sister, Susan Frost of La Quinta, CA, two nieces (Cindy Frost of Ventimiglia, Italy and Kristi Buckley of Manhattan Beach, CA), a nephew (Nick Frost of San Luis Obispo, CA), seven grandnieces and grandnephews, and numerous cousins. Jane’s dear cat, “Honey,” must also be considered one of her survivors. Jane Engle’s marriage to Donald R. Allen ended in divorce.

Jane Engle was born in Los Angeles, CA on June 15, 1942, the daughter of John D. Engle and Florence Elizabeth (“Billie”) Updike. She lived in San Marino, CA, for most of her childhood and adolescence. A woman of many gifts and a generous spirit, Jane held academic degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (B.S. in History), Cornell University School of Nursing (BSN), University of Illinois, Chicago (MSN) and Wesley Theological Seminary (M.Div.) She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Theta Tau nursing honor society. Jane served in the Peace Corps in Herat, Afghanistan. After receiving her nursing degrees, she did community outreach nursing in Mound Bayou, MS. Jane served as a coordinator of public health nursing in Chicago and as a clinical AIDS research nurse at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Her monograph “Outcome Measures in Home Health Care” was published in 1987. Jane served on the Washington, DC Mayor’s Task Force on Standards and was recognized by the Washington Times as “Person of the Week” in 1992. She is listed in Who’s Who of American Women for 1995-96.

Always sensitive to aesthetic concerns as well as human ones, Jane studied in a non-degree program at the Corcoran College of Art and Design after her retirement, working in water colors and acrylics in the abstract expressionist mode. She exhibited her work in the DC area including a one-woman show at the District of Columbia Arts Center.

From water skiing in southern California as a teenager to cross country skiing, cycling and hiking in the Appalachian Mountains, Jane was engaged throughout her life in rigorous outdoor activity. She was a member of Washington Women Outdoors and the Wanderbirds Hiking Club. Jane successfully completed the 1981 Marine Corps Marathon. Later on she completed a one day eighty-mile Bay-to-Bay bike ride a cross Delaware and part of Maryland and a single day rigorous twenty-mile hike through West Virginia’s Dolly Sods Wilderness to raise funds for a charity.

In her later years, Jane turned her attention more and more to the natural world. After a year of study at the Audubon Naturalist Society, where she spent many hours as a volunteer, Jane was certified as a Maryland Master Naturalist. She collected and catalogued seashells near her beloved vacation spot on Sanibel Island, FL. For several years she did the same with fungi. In her final years, as both her spiritual and recreational lives turned more and more the natural world, Jane’s attention turned more and more toward trees. She audited graduate courses to learn to identify them, and spent hundreds of hours filling loose leaf binders (one for each tree family) with photos that she had taken as well as summary identifying information. What must be called Jane’s relationship with trees was a source of grounding and stability as her life moved toward its end.

Throughout her life Jane was haunted by depression, which at midlife became bipolar disorder for which she was hospitalized several times. As she moved into her mid-seventies, the strenuous exercise which had always been a tool for Jane in managing her depression (along with medication and talk therapy) became less possible because of various physical problems. During her last year she had a TIA (mini-stroke), three attacks of angina, and arthritic issues. For all of these she declined medical care. Her final days were spent struggling with the combination of emotional and physical pain even as she maintained a close-to-normal schedule, including time with trees. Jane ended her life and the pain that had  come to dominate it with a single gunshot to her temple while standing near her favorite tree and a small pond that she loved.

As a keen lover of nature, Jane was an active and devoted member of Audubon Naturalist Society (ANS). She enjoyed volunteering for and participating in many of the Society’s programs including their important volunteer water quality monitoring program. Tribute gifts in Jane’s memory may be made to Audubon Naturalist Society and sent to their headquarters at 8940 Jones Mill Road, Chevy Chase, MD 20815. Gifts may also be made through the ANS website: https://anshome.org/2017/04/donate/

Jane Engle's memorial service will be held in the auditorium of the Collington Life Care Community, 10450 Lottsford Road, Mitchellville, MD 20721 at 3:00 PM on Saturday, January 20,2018. A reception will follow.
For more information, please contact Ken Burton ken_burton@comcast.net .