Jane McEwen

Jane McEwen passed away at the Hunters Pointe Retirement Residence on November 2, 2007 from natural causes. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 26, 1917. She was the eighth of 13 children born to George Hibbard McFarland and Mary Ellen Sheridan.

Jane was educated in St Louis schools and graduated from Webster College in 1939 with a degree in chemistry and dietetics. She completed a dietetic internship at the Polyclinic Hospital in New York City in 1940. While on the train from St. Louis to Wichita in search of work, the conductor gave her a telegram that said she had been accepted for employment as the first dietitian at St. Joseph's Hospital in Lewistown, Montana. She arrived in Lewistown in December, 1940, and went to work in the diet kitchen and taught dietetics to the student nurses. While in Lewistown, she met Bob McEwen. Jane and Bob married on January 16, 1943, in Auburn, Washington, where Bob had gone to work for the railroad.

During WWII Bob joined the submarine service and Jane returned to St. Louis with her first son, Dennis, to wait for Bob's return. Jane and Bob settled in Lewistown in 1946. Bob was in the grocery business and Jane stayed home with a family that grew to six children. After 20 years in the grocery business, Bob went to work selling life insurance. The life insurance business took them to Glasgow in 1967 and then to Bismarck, ND, in 1969. In 1973, they moved to Grand Forks, ND. Bob passed away in 1989. In 1997, the year of Red River flood in Grand Forks, Jane moved back to Lewistown. In September, 2005, she moved to Helena.

The big city girl readily adapted to life in a small town in the west. She braved camping, boating, fishing and hunting and a three year stint as a ranch wife when the family went into the cattle feeding business to supply meat for the grocery store. She attended many football and basketball games and other school events that her children participated in. Given her Irish heritage she could tell a good story or recount a good joke. One of her favorites was the time in high school when she was at a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game with friends only to be embarrassed that the lady a few rows behind who threatened to throw a bottle at the umpire was her mother. She had fond memories of growing up in a large family in a crowded neighborhood in St. Louis. She remembered standing on the levee with all the public school students to wave at Charles Lindberg and seeing Babe Ruth, Mel Ott, and Dizzy Dean play baseball. An important part of her life was her Catholic faith. From this she taught her children love, tolerance and generosity. She was involved in church activities throughout her life.

Jane was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, seven sisters;Eileen, Florence, Connie, Mary, Claire, Margaret and Betty Lee, and five brothers; James, Hibbard, Jack, Ed and Bob.

She is survived by her six children, Dennis (Donna) McEwen of Richland, WA.; Marcia (Vance) Jacobson of Everett, WA; Kevin (Susan) McEwen of Upton, KY; John (Mary) McEwen of Helena; Rock (Sandy) McEwen of Wheatland, WY and Terry (Lisa) McEwen of Sylvania, OH.; 12 grandchildren, Andy, Tucker (Sara), Kacey, Ian, Eric, Ellen, Daniel (Tracey), Amber, Marshall, Molly, Patrick and Connor; two great grandchildren, Lily and Julius, and numerous nieces and nephews. Jane's life will be celebrated at a funeral Mass at St. Leo's Catholic Church in Lewistown, MT on Wednesday Nov. 7 at 11:00 am. A vigil will be on Tuesday, Nov, 6 at 7:00 pm at the church.

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