Jane Locke McGrory (“Janie”) passed away on July 23, 2024, at home surrounded by family and pets.
She was born August 12, 1935, to Cora (Stoddard) and John Locke in Dayton, Ohio. Her life was full of art, music, theater, dogs, People magazine, an irreverent spirit and a beautiful independence that shined even at age six when she changed her given name, Elise, to Jane. At 11, she entered The Masters Boarding School in Dobbs Ferry, New York, where she developed lifelong friendships that meant the world to her while her parents lived abroad for the State Department.
Ever charting her own path, she attended St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing in New York. There she fell in love with the hospital’s handsome young assistant chaplain, the Rev. John McGrory, Jr. and defied school protocol by marrying before graduation, along with her father’s warning that her betrothed could not provide the privileged comforts she knew as a young woman.
With John as a new Air Force chaplain, Janie and John created their own life of comfort, raising a clan of six children and traveling the world. They lived in Texas, Morocco, Florida, Okinawa, Michigan and Nebraska, before settling in Montana in the late ’70s where John was rector at St. James Episcopal Church in Bozeman for 18 years.
Janie wore the mantle of “preacher’s wife” proudly but without pretense. She loved the church and congregation, yet didn’t suffer fools or fail to see humor in any situation, including when her youngest practiced writing his name boldly on a pew cushion. She was both horrified and entertained, and simply turned over the cushion, where it remained for years.
Beyond preacher’s wife, Janie was most certainly her own person, declaring it every Sunday for years when Mike Wallace introduced himself on 60 Minutes, adding, “And I’m Janie McGrory!” She was a skilled, professional nurse at the Bozeman Care Center and a lifelong gifted painter whose work, such as charming watercolors of Bozeman daily life, was widely recognized and displayed in homes near and far. In addition to painting, she passed on her own passion for theater, dancing and music discovered as a young girl soaring on stage as Peter Pan to her children, who felt her supportive presence and love of art on all of life’s stages.
While Janie’s energy and memory faded in recent years from the effects of dementia, our memories and profound love and appreciation for her will not. We also appreciate the remarkable care and love provided to Janie in her final weeks by Dr. Colette Gomez-Kirchhoff, Dr. Pam Heibert, Eden Hospice Care and their fine nurse assistants.
She was predeceased by her son Ryan (1964), husband, John (1997), and daughter Elizabeth (Libby) McGrory-Hodges (2014). And her legacy is survived by four children: Richard (Bobbi) McGrory, Laura (Todd) McGrory-Bayne, Lisa Locke McGrory, and Ramsey (Courtney) McGrory, 10 grandchildren: John (Missy) McGrory, Bethany (Jacob) McGrory-Milhon, Bryan (Megan) McGrory, and Katie (Eric) McGrory-Schneck; David (Jamie) Bayne; Ryan and Owen Hodges; and Anna, John, and Riley McGrory, and seven great-grandchildren: Dani, Luke, and Logan Libby McGrory; Jack and Rory Milhon; Eleanor Shneck; and Kylie McGrory.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to St. James Chaplaincy Fund, 5 W. Olive St., Bozeman, MT 59715.
Friends are invited to an open house celebrating Janie’s life at her house on Sunday, August 4, from 5:00 to 7:30 P.M.
Arrangements are in the care of Dokken-Nelson Funeral Service. www.dokkennelson.com [dokkennelson.com]
