WOODSTOCK — Leaving the world a better place was one of Jane Pitkin Curtis’ constants in her 103 years of life. An artist, farmer, world traveler, book author and proud political activist, Curtis filled her days with meaningful experiences and interactions with others with whom she crossed paths.
“She never slowed down until it was time to go,” Deborah Luquer, Curtis’ friend, said.
Curtis was an informed and involved citizen throughout her life, taking part in political protests and marches, including — until last October — attending Black Lives Matter vigils in Woodstock.
Her knowledge about the world was fueled by her intense interest in people, their stories, thoughts and dreams.
“She had eagle eyes,” Luquer, an 82-year-old Hartland resident, said. “What made her different was her curiosity in others.”
Curtis became hard of hearing as she got older, but she would always ask to hear a story told again because she had always been such an engaged listener, Luquer said.
“She was full of character,” Luquer said. “She had a humility that isn’t around so much today.”
Even on her deathbed earlier this year, Curtis kept up with visitors, planned her own funeral, wrote her obituary ahead of time and remarked, “Who knew dying could be so much fun?”
Curtis was born in Boston in 1918 and grew up in Massachusetts until she was a young adult.
While attending Smith College, where Curtis majored in art history and European history, she became a passionate artist and left behind a collection of beautiful watercolor paintings.
In 1953, she moved with her husband, Will Curtis, to West Hartford where they became dairy farmers together.
Four years later, they moved to Hartland where they operated a dairy farm called Sugar Brook Farm. The Curtises also bought and ran the Yankee Bookshop in downtown Woodstock for 10 years in the 1960s, which led to them publishing a two-volume book series, The Nature of Things.
Inspiration for the books came from a radio show where Will advertised the bookshop on Vermont Public Radio; he shared short and amusing facts from nature, such as how many eyes a bee has or how high a smallmouth bass can jump out of the water.
They saved the broadcasts, which Curtis later collected and made into a book.
In 1997, they moved from Hartland to Woodstock, where Curtis lived for the rest of her life, even after her husband’s death in 2011.
The couple wrote and published several other books together on topics such as nature, birds and Calvin Coolidge, and they traveled across the world to buy new books and experience new things.
“They had very itchy feet,” Curtis’ daughter, Kate Donahue, a 77-year-old Hartland resident, said.
At the airport, her mother “(would look) out at the planes thinking about where she would go next,” Donahue added.
Anthropology was another of Curtis’ interests, and it paired well with her love for travel.
Curtis “set the path for me,” said Donahue, who works as an anthropology professor at Plymouth (N.H.) State University.
In addition to her husband, Curtis also took trips with her friend Ann Debevoise, a 96-year-old Woodstock resident.
They traveled together to Italy and England, exploring the way things work in different places of the world.
“We were there to get a feeling for the country and what people were doing and thinking,” Debevoise said.
Understanding the functioning of society and different communities was something Curtis achieved in part by being involved in her own.
“She was such a dedicated person and a good citizen,” Debevoise said.
Curtis was involved in a number of local clubs and organizations, including the Green Mountain Club, the Hartland Planning Commission, the New Century Club in Woodstock and the Connecticut River Conservancy.
She loved reading political literature to educate herself and took ‘Learning Lab’ classes in Woodstock to explore historical topics and discuss current events.
Debevoise and Curtis attended the New Century Club together — a women’s group that met to discuss and write essays on history and politics — for many years. Debevoise was the club’s president from 2018 to 2020.
The group members were given prompts, such as artist Henri Matisse’s quote “creativity takes courage,” and asked to reflect in writing. The group’s monthly meetings were informative and interesting, Debevoise said.
“(Jane) and I shared ideas on (education) very strongly,” she added.
When they were together, the friends chatted about the importance of the subjects that young children learn in their first years of school, such as history and geography.
Though she had some strong opinions, Curtis maintained an open-mindedness that allowed her to connect with people from all different walks of life, even if they opposed some of her viewpoints.
“She was always kind to fools,” Luquer remembered.
For someone of her generation, Curtis was a modern patriot, Luquer said.
“She was a great patriot,” Luquer said. “She listened, and then she quietly went ahead and did what she thought was right.”
Throughout her life, Curtis embraced her citizenship as a political activist, participating in marches against the use of nuclear arms in Washington, D.C., protesting the Vietnam War in Montpelier, and, more recently, protesting the separation of immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border and attending the 2017 Women’s March in Montpelier.
In 2016, in her late 90s, Curtis helped form a community group which she called “Women for a Change,” which she led for a few years, encouraging voters to use their voice and be active political participants of their country.
She adopted a big tent philosophy and made sure to include a wide spectrum of political perspectives at Women for a Change meetings. She worried about the state of the country and its government. Still, she knew that in order to achieve a properly functioning democracy, appreciating and welcoming the diversity of thought in our society is a crucial step.
Through Women For a Change, around 25 members frequently “got together to ask what we could do for our country,” Luquer said. The group hosted speakers like Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, held mock elections and advocated for civics to be included and emphasized the curriculum at local schools.
She was “a mover, a shaker and an activist,” Donahue, her daughter, said.
Her energy, self-sufficiency, sense of honor, integrity and intrepidness were a few elements of Curtis’ personality.
“She felt guilty about being privileged,” Bill Donahue, Curtis’ son-in-law, said.
Curtis’ activism gave her a chance to realize her purpose, enact change and inspire others to do the same.
“One of her last worries was: ‘Why am I so lucky?’ ” Luquer said.
In her hometown, she would walk the streets of Woodstock on her own, sometimes on walks for her health, sometimes as an activist.
To honor her memory, funeral guests walked through the village of Woodstock as Curtis had done herself for so many years.
Rose Terami can be contacted at rosoterami@gmail.com.
