Jane Howard Robinson

October 27, 1943 - August 29, 2020

Jane Robinson lived her values and her dreams. She was a great mother to her beloved son Dylan and daughter Laura. She was a devoted wife for 48 years to her husband Gary, the love of her life. Jane was a life-long community activist and, became a leading advocate in Alameda County for quality care and fair treatment for senior citizens. She was energetic, cheerful, interested in new ideas, filled with a spirit of adventure, and she loved to travel.

Jane was the Director of the Alameda County long term care Ombudsman program for more than twenty-five years; her work improved the lives of countless people. She raised the money to run the program, hired and supervised the staff, worked with the volunteer executive board, and trained the volunteers who went into nursing homes throughout Alameda County to advise residents and their families of their rights and to make sure that the nursing homes treated residents properly. As the president of the statewide Ombudsman program she lobbied aggressively in Sacramento and convinced the state legislature and the governor to put money into the state budget to provide ongoing and stable funding for the program in every county in California. Jane was born in Kansas City to Margaret Whittem Howard and Paul Howard. After World War II, her family moved to Bethesda, Maryland where her father became one of the first employees of the new federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and her mother was a child care director. Every summer her family vacationed at a family home in Marblehead, Massachusetts. She loved to go to the rocky beach and swim. Jane got her BA in English at Smith College in Massachusetts and spent post graduate time working in Poland and Hungary. She decided to move to California inspired partly by the Mamas and the Papas song California Dreamin’. She got her MSW at University of California, Berkeley. It was 1968, a time of great social upheaval in Berkeley and in the nation. She won a Ford Foundation fellowship and became the representative for the UC Berkeley School of Social Work to the Professional Schools Abroad Program in India where she met her future husband Gary Robinson. He was the representative for the UC Berkeley School of Business Administration.

They spent seven months living, studying, and working in New Delhi with a month off to travel throughout India and Kashmir. At the end of the program, they pooled their money and spent four months wandering through Asia, the Middle-east, Africa, and Europe visiting 21 countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Egypt. When they returned to the United States they settled in Oakland. Jane worked in a Great Societyinspired job training program in the Mission District in San Francisco and later for one in Oakland. Jane and Gary married in 1971.

In 1973 they took a month to travel on their own through South America. After their first child Dylan was born, she took the job as the Director of the Ombudsman program and remained in that position until 2003.

Jane and Gary renovated a beautiful Victorian house on 12th Avenue in Oakland and lived there for a dozen years. They were active in the Brooklyn Neighborhood Preservation Association. Jane was a devoted mother attending PTA meetings, making Halloween costumes, leading Laura’s Bluebirds group, going to Dylan’s soccer and Little League games (sometimes cheering at the wrong time but always enthusiastically), making graham cracker candy houses for Dylan and Laura to sell at the school Christmas Crafts Faire, and generally always being there for her kids and husband. Jane was the President of the Metropolitan Greater Oakland Democratic club in the late 1970s during the era when Oakland was transitioning from Republican to Democratic leadership of the city. They took family vacations abroad. In 1996 Jane was elected to be a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

In the 1990s Jane became a devoted member of the SGI Buddhist group and for the rest of her life faithfully attended weekly meetings. Jane always had a kind word and helpful advice for any of her many friends who might need help. After their children went away to college, Jane and Gary went abroad on vacations almost every year often trading houses with families in London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona and elsewhere. She was always interested in ideas and philosophy and took many classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Berkeley.

She didn’t slow down in retirement until few years ago when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In December, 2019 she was admitted to a Memory Care facility. It was one of many that she had worked so hard to ensure that they maintained high standards of care.

She is survived by her siblings with whom she was always close-- her brother Richard Howard, a prominent photographer in Winchester, Massachusetts, and her sister Elizabeth Howard Moore, an emeritus professor at the University of London, and an expert in the art history and archeology of South Asia who is currently living in Myanmar.

In lieu of flowers, the family prefers a contribution to the Alzheimer’s Association. A Zoom memorial service will be held at 5:30 pm on Saturday, September 26th. Contact Laura at lcrobinson1@gmail.com for details.