Janie in the 1967 Dobbs Ferry High School Yearbook
Chairperson for the Costumes for Drama Club
Today is my sister's birthday. It's the first birthday since I was born (27 months later) that I am here in mortal form and she is not. I believe her soul is hovering somewhere in Larchmont, close to her children and grandchildren, perhaps in the kitchen where she spent so many hours teaching her beloved Allison and Jonah recipes for the holidays.
A true Cancer, Jane evolved into her role as devoted mother, Grams and balabusta homemaker, "hostess with the mostest" for the annual Father's Day barbecue, Passover seders, Thanksgiving dinners and Rosh HaShanah feasts.
But Janie-before-Jane seemed to be destined for other goals. Janie was a wild child, a free spirit and an artist in search of her true calling.
Janie and Grandma in Springfield, MA c. 1958
My earliest memory of Janie is in Kenwood Gardens, an apartment complex in Toledo, Ohio. She would play with the "big kids" in the playground while my mother checked in from a second-story window. The apartment might have been our home or a neighbor's. I remember staying upstairs with my mother and friends.
On Fridays, I waited impatiently for the challah to bake in the oven, eager to taste my own miniature version. Janie would be downstairs actively engaged, privileged to be on her own and stand her own ground, especially among the boys.
In those days, before elementary school, she looked rugged and tomboyish. She was husky and athletic, confident and confrontational, a natural-born leader, smart as a whip, and insufferably "bossy" - or, as my mother saw it, determined to get the best out of everyone in every situation. I envied her tremendously because she seemed to have everything I lacked: freedom, a quick mind and new clothes (which would become my hand-me-downs).
Above all, Janie was the first. The first to go to sleep-away camp, the first to drive, the first to go into Manhattan with friends (and no grownups), and the first to go away to college, albeit only 40 minutes from home in bohemian Greenwich Village, She became the oldest of three when we lived in Springfield, MA during the late 1950s.
Always the center of attention, Janie called the shots, ordering people around to the very end. (Who insists on a vanilla cupcake with vanilla icing in Manhattan?! No substitutes, just fill the order exactly).
Janie in the 1967
Copy Editor for the Dobbs Ferry High School Yearbook
Janie was, at a glance, totally badass Bronx, from the tip of her teased up bee-hive to the points of her soft black leather boot-shoes. Looking much older than her 14 years, she seemed tough as nails and ready for the fast crowd headed toward perdition. Eventually she found herself among the artsy students who signed up for Drama Club, Chorus and Yearbook.
The move to Dobbs Ferry, however, proved traumatic. Forced to adjust, she revised her wardrobe to fit in with those who valued creativity, applying to college and the burgeoning Pop Art trends infiltrating the fashion industry.
Once she discovered Drama Club, Andy Warhol and the British Invasion her life seemed transformed from torment to exuberance. Chairing the Costume Committee for the Drama Club filled her days and nights. She designed and sewed costumes for Molière's Miser, Strindberg's Ghosts, and Anouilh's Antigone.
At the time, she seemed destined for a career in fashion, which she followed through magazines imported from London, purchased on 42nd Street, where foreign periodicals could be found in those days. She read Rave, Fab and all the other English glossies that offered news about her latest pop favorites: Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Sandie Shaw, Marianne Faithfull, and, above all else, The Animals, because of her mad crush on Eric Burdon, their lead vocalist. She wore Mary Quant makeup, Mondrian- inspired shifts, paper dresses, white Go-Go boots, and mini-skirts that went "up to there."
She was theatrical, spunky, and hip beyond her years (and way beyond the provincial Dobbs Ferry High School Class of 1967). Allergic to conventional standards, she distinguished herself among her peers as a cosmopolitan maverick, who was poised to make it in the big leagues of the Big Apple: either in the fashion houses on Seventh Avenue or the luxury department stores on Fifth (Saks, Bonwits, Bendels, Bergdorfs, or their boutique equivalents).
Jane in her kitchen in Livingston, NJ 1980s?
On June 20, 1971, she became Jane Y. Hecht, married to Joel Hecht.
By then, her self-image had changed. She invented a "Sadie, Sadie Married Lady" persona, Post-Goodbye, Columbus in Livingston, New Jersey. She was no longer Janie, but Jane: a typical affluent Jewish middle class woman, who once worshipped Jackie Kennedy, pill-box hats and Cuddle Coat ensembles purchased in the Garment District at a friend of a friend's uncle's showroom. Turned suburban housewife, she shopped at the Short Hill Mall, trying to keep up with the Jersey Jones who patronized Tiffany's and Nordstrom's.
More Good Housekeeping than Vogue, she cultivated a maturing charm, shedding her youthful quirkiness to fit in with the local PTA and her conservative temple's congregation. These roots produced a dynamite knack for fund-raising that served her in good stead for her last careers She became the executive director of the Livingston Municipal Alliance Committee, a member of the Board of Trustees for Temple Beth Shalom, and variously titled administrators for Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest for which she wrote grants and organized numerous lucrative events.
Jane serving Daniel and his friends at his 2nd birthday
Demanding Jane Y. Hecht was a far cry from rambunctious, contrary Janie Yvette Gersh, whose flirtatious flash of her light blue eyes belied a deeply felt shyness and multiple insecurities. To compensate, she channeled her ambition through her children, whom she felt were her greatest accomplishments. Daniel and Michael came through for her too, offering her the greatest support during her battle with lymphoma.
Jane celebrated her last birthday in Weill Cornell Hospital on York and East 68th Street. (She had been born at Beth Israel Hospital, more than fifty blocks south.) She passed away about a month later on July 26th. It was the day after our mother's first Yahrzeit.
I believe my parents called to her: "Janie, time to come home."
And this "wild child" -- this obstinate force of nature - finally did as she was told.
I wish she disobeyed, as Janie-before-Jane would do.
