My sister, Jane Darby Douglas, passed away on August 20, 1976 at Pomona Valley Hospital following a sudden brain hemorrhage at the age of 33. Janie and her daughter, Elizabeth, had recently returned from Burlington, Vermont where they had been living for the past 3 years.
After graduation, Janie attended classes, got married, had a daughter, divorced, then moved with me to the Bay Area in 1967. We shared an apartment in Oakland, commuted to San Francisco on AC Transit and ended the day picking up Elizabeth from preschool. She enrolled at San Francisco State, earning her degree in Psychology in 1970, and became politically active during these years. I remember a demonstration complete with mounted police and tear gas at City Hall in San Francisco—one of my all-time favorite memories. Perhaps more than the anti-war effort, Janie was an advocate of women’s liberation and geared her post-grad studies towards opening legal doors for her advocacy.
In 1972 Janie and Elizabeth left San Francisco and moved to Bangor, Maine, and a year later to Burlington, Vermont where she worked as a legal secretary. By then, I was married and living in Miami. She and Elizabeth visited us in Miami and we visited them in Vermont. Our last visit was the year before she died—I am forever grateful that she met my daughter who was just one year old at the time. In the summer of 1976, she returned to Claremont to continue her work there. She attended her 15 year class reunion and enjoyed herself immensely. I was living in Barranquilla, Colombia when I was notified she had died.
Janie and I were less than a year apart. For five days a year, I would try to butt in and go where she went and do stuff with her and her friends, since we were “twins” for five days. It rarely worked, but I never quit trying. I’m pretty sure that going to see Auntie Mame with her and Virginia Blake was one of the times I succeeded. I enjoyed her friends and her popularity and have not fully recovered, if that’s even possible, from losing her at so young an age. Her daughter, eleven at the time, came to live with us first in Colombia, then in St. Croix and lastly in Caracas, Venezuela when we returned to the States following her graduation from high school there.
Janie is remembered for many good times, adventures and conversations, races to open what were always the same birthday and Christmas gifts from family every year, and for her passionate support of women’s liberation and social justice—efforts to which she contributed throughout her life. She was my best friend.
Catherine "Cathy" Elizabeth Darby (1962)
My sister, Jane Darby Douglas, passed away on August 20, 1976 at Pomona Valley Hospital following a sudden brain hemorrhage at the age of 33. Janie and her daughter, Elizabeth, had recently returned from Burlington, Vermont where they had been living for the past 3 years.
After graduation, Janie attended classes, got married, had a daughter, divorced, then moved with me to the Bay Area in 1967. We shared an apartment in Oakland, commuted to San Francisco on AC Transit and ended the day picking up Elizabeth from preschool. She enrolled at San Francisco State, earning her degree in Psychology in 1970, and became politically active during these years. I remember a demonstration complete with mounted police and tear gas at City Hall in San Francisco—one of my all-time favorite memories. Perhaps more than the anti-war effort, Janie was an advocate of women’s liberation and geared her post-grad studies towards opening legal doors for her advocacy.
In 1972 Janie and Elizabeth left San Francisco and moved to Bangor, Maine, and a year later to Burlington, Vermont where she worked as a legal secretary. By then, I was married and living in Miami. She and Elizabeth visited us in Miami and we visited them in Vermont. Our last visit was the year before she died—I am forever grateful that she met my daughter who was just one year old at the time. In the summer of 1976, she returned to Claremont to continue her work there. She attended her 15 year class reunion and enjoyed herself immensely. I was living in Barranquilla, Colombia when I was notified she had died.
Janie and I were less than a year apart. For five days a year, I would try to butt in and go where she went and do stuff with her and her friends, since we were “twins” for five days. It rarely worked, but I never quit trying. I’m pretty sure that going to see Auntie Mame with her and Virginia Blake was one of the times I succeeded. I enjoyed her friends and her popularity and have not fully recovered, if that’s even possible, from losing her at so young an age. Her daughter, eleven at the time, came to live with us first in Colombia, then in St. Croix and lastly in Caracas, Venezuela when we returned to the States following her graduation from high school there.
Janie is remembered for many good times, adventures and conversations, races to open what were always the same birthday and Christmas gifts from family every year, and for her passionate support of women’s liberation and social justice—efforts to which she contributed throughout her life. She was my best friend.