October 12, 1942 ~ December 24, 2022 (age 80)
Jane Ann Krenitsky Williams of Mantua, 80, passed through death into life everlasting on Saturday, December 24, 2022, at Autumn Care in Hyde Park after faithfully coping with Alzheimer’s and kidney disease. We imagine her once again reading children’s books, filling prescriptions, and designing glorious table settings.
She was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1942 to Michael and Jane Krenitsky, the first grandchild on both sides of her family. Throughout her life she loved the typically golden weather enjoyed on her birthday – October 12.
“Janny” as she was called as a child, spent her early years in Pennsylvania – living at her grandparents’ home while her father served in World War II and later in campus housing at Carnegie Tech which he attended on the G.I. Bill.
At age four she moved with her parents and little brothers to Texas (by train). Her father went on to become a librarian at Texas A&M University, and she grew up playing in the stacks, listening to midnight yell practice, and walking to football games. She would later meet an Aggie on a blind date and spend fifty-nine years of marriage with him.
In her youth Jane Ann met a young singer named Elvis Presley before he rose to fame. She worked at a soda fountain in a drugstore and decided she would like to become a pharmacist. After finishing high school early, she moved to Austin and attended The University of Texas. She was assigned to live with a roommate from Montauk, New York who would become a lifelong friend. When Jane Ann graduated in 1963 she was one of the few female pharmacy students in her class.
As soon as she completed her finals, Jane Ann started work on sewing her own wedding dress, which she wore on March 2, 1963, when she married Richard Williams at The Episcopal Church of The Good Shepherd in Austin. They left the reception to drive to Alaska, where Richard was stationed with The US Air Force.
Jane Ann spent the next decade moving with Richard’s career while working at drugstores and hospital pharmacies around the country. Her first pharmacy license was from Alaska, which was still a new enough state that her license number was two digits. She did take what she called “her sabbatical” during their ten months living in Anaheim, California. She spent that idyllic time visiting Disneyland weekly (it was just blocks from their house).
In 1973 Richard was assigned to work in northern Utah. Jane Ann got a Utah license and enjoyed doing relief work for pharmacists around Box Elder and Cache counties, “putting around” in her red Volkswagen Beetle. She and Richard settled in Mantua and joined St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Brigham City. Jane Ann called the years that followed her “Mother Earth phase.” She gardened and won fair sweepstakes for canning while raising sheep in the backyard and spinning wool.
When Richard was later stationed at Hill Air Force Base, Jane Ann was very involved with the Officers Wives Club, making many good friends.
In 1979 Jane Ann began working at Brigham City Community Hospital and was a pharmacist there until her retirement in 2015. She loved working in the pharmacy with David McRory, Cherisse Kaminska, and many others over the years. She saw a lot of changes in medicine in her fifty-one years as a pharmacist and it was truly her life’s work. She enjoyed collecting beautiful mortars and pestles and displayed them in her home in a special cabinet she designed.
After much waiting and faith she became a mother at age forty-six. She was magnificent at motherhood – always a soft spot of security and source of encouragement for her “Sugar Plum Dumpling,” Rebecca Jane.
Jane Ann volunteered at Mountain View Elementary School where she read countless books to the children. She also volunteered with the YWCA.
Throughout her life, Jane Ann had a deep love for the liturgy and hymns of The Episcopal Church and The Book of Common Prayer, especially the psalms. She was baptized and confirmed at her childhood church, St. Thomas’ in College Station. Once in Utah, she was involved in diocesan committees in Salt Lake and coordinated memorials at St. Michael’s for many years. She attended church weekly, and loved visiting different Episcopal churches when traveling.
Jane Ann enjoyed visiting quilt stores and buying fat quarters. She also loved bookstores, and believed a hardcover children’s book was the perfect gift.
Jane Ann read Thomas Hardy and Dostoyevsky. She played classical music on vinyl records in her home and sent notes to her daughter’s schools on museum notecards. She was the master of writing Christmas newsletters, putting together table settings featuring her beautiful housewares, and planning educational vacations, especially to Lewis and Clark sites.
In her final years, Jane Ann loved watching her programs – favorites included Downton Abbey and O Pioneers!
She is survived by her husband Richard, daughter Rebecca, dog Houghton, brothers Michael and John Krenitsky, sisters-in-law Rita Shaw and Marybeth Krenitsky and their families, friend Miriam Fisher, and Rebecca’s godparents Ivan and Deanna Adams and Elizabeth Basham, her college roommate.
Jane Ann is preceded in death by her parents, grandparents, in-laws, girlhood friend Mary Francis Badgett, and neighbor Bernice Rasmussen.
Richard and Rebecca would like to thank ComForCare, wonderful neighbors and friends, Autumn Care, and Symbii Hospice for the compassion with which they cared for Jane Ann, and Fr. Brian Winter and Fr. Jason Samuel for their pastoral care.
A viewing will be held on Sunday, January 1, 2023, from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Myers Mortuary, 205 South 100 East, Brigham City, Utah.
Funeral Service at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, 589 South 200 East, Brigham City, Utah, on Monday, January 2, 2023, at 11:00 a.m. which will be recorded and uploaded to her obituary.
Burial will follow in the Mantua Cemetery.
Condolences and memories may be shared with the family at Myers Mortuary.