Jane Garnsey O’Donnell wasn’t just a volunteer – she was a tireless volunteer, a “great participator,” said the Rev. Jim Short.
Friends and family agreed that O’Donnell, who died Sunday at age 92, was a gracious, gentle, elegant woman, but she could also be “outspoken and direct,” Short added.
“I loved her,” said Short, who now lives in Appomattox, Va.
More than once, O’Donnell had suggestions for how Short could better manage Ascension Episcopal Church, which her father, John Kennedy, had helped found and where she was a regular.
“You always knew where she stood,” said her son, Walter Wood Garnsey Jr.
Thousands of O’Donnell’s hours were spent in exhaustive work with the Red Cross, where she held several posts. She also was on the founding board of the Children’s Museum of Denver.
“Jane was hands-on, practical and smart,” said Cyndi Kahn, who was on the museum board. “She wasn’t a namby-pamby, tea-going woman.”
“She rarely focused a conversation on herself, but on everyone else, and she kept up on everything and everybody,” said her stepdaughter Kathie Watson of Genesee.
“She was a very tough lady,” said her daughter Gay Garnsey Galligan of Bailey.
Another stepdaughter, Ann O’Donnell of Lake Oswego, Ore., recalled that when she herself was a grade schooler, O’Donnell enlisted students at her school to fill cigar boxes with school supplies that would be sent to disadvantaged children.
O’Donnell managed the congressional campaign of the late Republican Ellen Harris in 1954, said her son, who recalled his mother decorating Harris’ campaign bus with huge elephant ears. “They called it the CongrElephant,” he said, laughing.
Jane Kennedy was born Sept. 17, 1912, on Humboldt Street in east Denver.
She graduated from Vassar College in art history, studied painting at New York Art Students’ League and worked as a model in New York City. She continued oil painting throughout her life.
She married Walter Wood Garn sey, who was part owner of Stokes Canning Co., on Sept. 17, 1938. He died in 1977. Jane Kennedy Garnsey married Robert O’Donnell, a landscape architect, in 1979. He died in 1987.
She founded Mile High Inner City Red Cross, organized Flight for Life airlift relief efforts at what is now Buckley Air Force Base for Vietnam veterans, was chair of the Mile High Junior Red Cross, volunteer coordinator for the National Red Cross Convention in 1987, and was on the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center board and the Boettcher Foundation scholarship committee.
In addition to her children and stepdaughters, she is survived by another stepdaughter, Mary O’Donnell of Bayfield; four grandchildren; eight great- grandchildren; three stepgrandchildren; and one stepgreat- grandchild.
She was preceded in death by her daughter Jill Carroll Garnsey and one great-grandson.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
