(Barbara) Jane Leonard

(Barbara) Jane Leonard was born on September 5th, 1934, to the late Herbert and Frances Lillian Eyer, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Jane was an only child and survived several childhood illnesses as well as the scarcity and rationing of the depression and WWII years.

Smart and quick to learn, she was known as “Jane the Brain” in school, which was not a compliment in an era when women were not supposed to be smart. Since she loved to read, recommend, and organize books, she attended Millersville State Teacher’s College to study library science.

One night, during her college years, students from Intervarsity Christian Fellowship knocked on the door of her dorm room and told her that there was a God who loved her; thus began her Christian journey. Her faith in God provided a lens through which she viewed the world and a framework for her life. During the summer months she worked as a camp counselor at a Christian camp in Algonquin Park, Canada. She fell in love with that area and made lifelong friends.

Upon graduation, she moved to Rutherford, NJ to be an elementary school librarian. It was during this time, living across the river from Manhattan, that she also fell in love with New York City. New York City and Ontario, Canada became two central locations for her life.

A few years later, she enrolled in New York Theological Seminary, where she received a Master of Religious Education degree. Upon graduation, she moved to Wyoming, and then Colorado Springs, where she met and married Austin Leonard. In 1963, less than half of one percent of all marriages were interracial, and theirs was one of them.

Colorado Springs was not kind to Jane and Austin, so in 1965 they relocated to Brooklyn, New York, where they raised their two daughters, Lily and Nicole.

In 1980, Jane became a computer programmer for Abraham and Strauss, a department store in downtown Brooklyn. And in 1988, after her kids had grown, she moved to the Muskoka Lakes region in Canada, where she purchased a log cabin on a dirt road and enjoyed one of the happiest seasons of her life.

In 1989 she was asked to put her programming skills to use for a company in Fort McMurray (in northern Alberta, Canada), which she did for a short time.

In 1991, she moved to Toronto where she attended the Centre for Christian Studies. She completed her education and became a lay minister in Biscotasing, Ontario.

By 1998, she moved back to America (California) to be near her daughter, Lily, and her first two grandchildren. There she finally began to settle into retirement life: volunteering, enjoying her grandchildren, and staying healthy.

In 2006, she moved to New Hampshire and then in 2013 to Rochester, NY to be near Nicole and her family. Jane lived in Rochester for the rest of her life.

Jane instilled in her daughters a love of music and the arts, the appreciation of nature and adventure, a fascination of people and the love of reading.

Jane was ahead of her time in many ways. She had an acuity for math, which led her into the male-dominated field of computer programming. She was one of the first white women to marry a Black man. She raised two biracial daughters in the ‘60s and ‘70s. She lived in the Canadian wilderness and loved it. And she became an educated lay leader in the Anglican church, which was also unusual for a woman to do.

Jane leaves to cherish her memory her daughters Lily Leonard and Nicole (Leonard) Doyley; four grandchildren, Marissa Matlack, Erik Matlack, Isaac Doyley and Benjamin Doyley, and one great-grandchild, Caroline Matlack. She loved her children and grandchildren and was proud of all of them. She was predeceased by her parents and husband.

She will be sorely missed.

There will be a memorial service for Jane on Saturday, October 11th at 1:00 pm at the Fairport United Methodist Church in Fairport, NY (31 W Church St, Fairport, NY 14450). All are welcome.