Jane Frey

Jane Frey lived an extraordinary life of commitment to justice, beauty, community, and love. Growing up in Wadsworth, Ohio, she was deeply influenced by the pacifist teachings and egalitarian culture of the Mennonite Church. Her first protest was as a little girl, against the town’s efforts to cut down the old trees lining the street of her neighborhood. While she only blocked their chainsaws for a few hours, she negotiated a promise to plant new trees in their place. At 13, after moving to Lake Forest, Illinois, her fire was further ignited, and she convinced her mother to regularly drive her to local protests against the Vietnam War.
In high school she was introduced to the work of the United Farmworkers Union, who were endeavoring to improve the working and living conditions of migrant farmworkers in the United States. She was so inspired by the cause that at 17 she spent the summer in La Paz, California, learning to organize with the UFW, meeting Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Joan Baez and many other inspiring leaders. It was there she began to understand the relationship between community organizing and culture, and the fundamental necessity of using food, music, art, and joy as the bonding force of movement solidarity.
Jane began her higher education at Mount Holyoke College in 1973 before eventually graduating with a BA in elementary education from UMass Amherst in 1980. During this time, she continued her work with the UFW lettuce and grape boycott efforts in Cleveland, Boston, and Holyoke. Once back, she fell in with the notorious 15 Hamilton Street crowd. This amazing group of friends living, playing, and organizing together became the basis of her social and political life for years to come. It was there she befriended the Sisters of St. Joseph, who were also dedicated to community work in the Flats and South Holyoke. She helped start community gardens, joined the efforts of New Unity (a worker-empowerment organization based in Springfield), helped start Womanshelter/Compañeras (a sanctuary for abused women), along with numerous other community activities. It was during this era that she met and married Carlos Vega and became stepmother to his son Aaron.
After her son Jesse was born in 1978, she was inspired to become a nurse-midwife – both as a personal calling to meaningful work and to address the racially charged crises in prenatal care, infant mortality, and teenage pregnancy in Holyoke. She received her nursing degree from Springfield Technical Community College in 1983 and her MSN in nurse-midwifery from Yale University in 1985, the same year her son Nicolás was born. She proceeded to help create a dynamic midwifery practice in Holyoke with a devoted team of beloved compatriots that served the community for many years. Jane estimated that she delivered over a thousand babies during her career as a nurse-midwife.
Over the ensuing years, Jane’s life developed in many beautiful directions. She participated in various choirs: the Amandla Chorus, the Hampshire Choral Society, the Warren Plaut Memorial Singers, the Frey Family Christmas Choir, and, perhaps most influentially, Jane Sapp’s Community Chorus. She traveled extensively through Latin America and Europe, even into the final year of her life. She always relished the opportunity to eat new foods, see more art, and experience the richness of human culture. She loved walking and hiking through natural and urban environments with friends and family across Western Massachusetts and around the world. She was a school nurse at Smith Vocational High School for several years and a long-time board member of the Carlos Vega Fund for Social Justice. All the while, she enjoyed working in her garden, decorating her home, and cooking delicious food for her family and friends.
Jane died far too young and will be missed beyond measure. In these final years, she refused to call cancer a “journey.” She felt it was cancer that was preventing her from her desire to keep exploring, learning, and sharing in the goodness of this great earth with all the people she encountered in it. She did everything she believed she could to push back against its journey-dampening force. It was yet another opportunity to protest, and in that determined effort she refused to lose her humanity and commitment to beauty and goodness.
Jane leaves behind her beloved children, siblings Mary and John, cherished friends, devoted colleagues, and countless loved ones. She would want us all to carry forward with determination her ethic of joy, beauty, and kindness in the world. ¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
A memorial service will be held in late September. In lieu of flowers, she asked that friends please make a donation to the Carlos Vega Fund for Social Justice. https://carlosvegafund.org/
Learn more about the history of midwifery in Holyoke, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2BuZlll-xA