Obituary: Jane L. Martinez/Naasko

As received from Memorial Chapel Funeral and Cremation Service:

Toivola

Jane Martinez-Naasko passed away at UP Health Systems Portage on Saturday, the 20th of April 2024, and thus began her final adventure. Jane was always on an adventure. Sometimes, it looked like a walk past the zoo in her small hometown of Emporia, Kansas, on her way to school. Sometimes, it looked like a sudden, random decision to pack everything she owned into a Volkswagen Beetle and leave that small town for Denver, a city she had never seen but where her best friend’s brother lived. Sometimes, it looked like a solo cross-country journey to Toivola, Michigan, in the depth of winter one December to move to the little hamlet where she would marry and give birth to her two children, Julie (Naasko) Duetscher and Benjamin Naasko.

She was born Jane Lynn Graves on August 6, 1945, on the very day that “we dropped the bomb,” and she hated being reminded of how old she was when the annual news coverage came around each year. Young Jane was brave and precocious. She began first grade at the wrong school. She had walked to the town school when she was supposed to attend the country school because of where she lived. There, she met her lifelong best friend, Janetta. When Jane refused to switch schools and be parted from her, the teacher called her parents, John and Ida, who told the teacher that she might as well give in because Jane never would. She never did. Janetta was her confidant, closest friend, and co-conspirator in many of Jane’s adventures.

Jane was the oldest of three children, and she loved her brothers, Jack and Alan, ferociously. Jack preceded her in death, but his wife, Vickie, and their children and grandchildren remained close to her heart. Her visits to Kansas with them and her brother Alan  were highlights in her life. Vickie, her vivacious sister-in-law, was also a frequent companion on Jane’s adventures and the sister she never had. 

While Jane loved her children dearly, it was her grandchildren whom she loved best, and she joked that she should have had them first. She had thirteen, five boys and eight girls. Her grandsons are Joseph, Raymond, Elijah, Gregory, and John who was called Jack, like her beloved brother. Her granddaughters are Maria, Claire, Sara, Isabel, Veronica, Cristina, Sophia, and Claudia. Many of her grandchildren were with her when she passed. With them, she shared her love of walks, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, and cats. Jane regaled them with stories of her many adventures.

Joseph recently married and had a child. Noelle and Nicholas were pulled into her heart, and she loved them dearly. Maria married Alex Ross on Jane’s most recent birthday, and she was inexpressibly happy about sharing this special day with them. Watching her grandchildren grow was a delight to her.

Jane outlived three husbands with whom she shared more adventures. She lived in Kansas, Colorado, downstate Michigan, and the Upper Peninsula, and she always carried pieces of them in her heart. She loved the plains, the mountains, Lake Superior, and the ocean near where Julie and her husband, John, raised their children in Seattle, Washington.

Jane’s final years were spent on the farm with her son and his wife, Melissa, where she enjoyed the antics of her goat and ducks, which mingled with her son’s large collection of animals. She held ducklings and poults, slipped treats to goats and sheep, and watched birds from her picture window. She loved the snow, the trees, and the flowers.

Jane’s last day began with breakfast with her son and a secret chocolate chip cookie baked by her granddaughters. They knew her love of cookies and ice cream and sneaked them to her while Melissa looked the other way. She enjoyed a donut in the afternoon, one from her favorite bakery, Roy’s. She napped with her calico cats, Lindsey Lou and Callie Sue. In the afternoon, she suffered a sudden, massive hemorrhagic stroke, which took her body from us but not her spirit. With an abundance of confidence in the mercy of God, her family trusts her to the One who loved her most. She shares this final adventure with Him.

Jane’s funeral will be public and held at the Memorial Chapel Funeral & Cremation Service Mt. View Chapel in South Range at ten a.m. on April 27th, 2024. Visitation will begin at nine. Burial and graveside will take place in the Toivola Cemetary. The family invites attendees to a reception at the farm in Jane’s little house, affectionately known as the Casita or “little house” in Spanish.

To view Jane’s obituary or to send condolences to the family please visit www.memorialchapel.net.