Anne Octavia Jay
Anne Octavia Jay
1961-2020
In 2018, this is how Anne described herself (http://midwesterntides.com/about/):
Anne Jay grew up on the Long Island Sound but has lived in Saint Louis for her adult life. She migrates back to the tides and family of the east coast whenever possible. When not writing, Anne works as a speech language therapist, presently supervising graduate students in Communication Disorders during their clinical training at Fontbonne University. She has taught writing at the university level, has provided tools to help people heal through writing, and has counseled students, clients and the families of clients throughout her career.
Anne was born into a large family that lived in a large house on the north shore of Long Island. She was the youngest of eight children of Robert and Cynthia Jay. The roll call for the children was: Alex, Paul, Daniel, Alida, Stephen, Quentin, David, and Anne. The house was filled with music, sailors, expeditions, long meals and tall tales. As the youngest child, Anne became an astute observer of character. She had an early gift for writing and she often snuck away to play her flute. The large family grew even larger over the years: Anne’s mother Cynthia now claims more than fifty children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
Every summer, the Jay family spent four magic weeks on Nantucket, a beach house with lots of room for the large family, and these vacations required the constant production of major meals. Anne always had the choice to immerse herself in family life or else to disappear on long contemplative walks to the beaches, salt marshes and the moors. She often returned with seashells, blueberries and other treasures. For the rest of her life, Nantucket continued to serve as a place of spiritual renewal with its deep fogs, endless beaches, and spectacular sunsets.
Anne attended East Woods School in Long Island, Milton Academy and then Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. She maintained deep friendships from her college days. Her kindness, sensitivity and sense of humor formed life-long bonds that would continue to be with her over the years. She also spent a semester abroad in Great Britain, which included visits to the western Scottish islands. We treasured her letters, reading them aloud before turning in for the night.
Like most of her class, Anne graduated from college without a specific career direction. A career competency test steered her toward speech therapy. Located only six blocks from her brother’s family’s home in the Central West End, St. Louis University had an excellent program and Anne signed up. While writing this, we are reminded of the great fortune that brought our lives together in St. Louis.
Anne did, indeed, become a speech therapist, working at several different institutions around the St. Louis region, including many years at St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf, where she helped young children to adapt to their new cochlear implants. In recent years Anne taught and conducted clinical observation at Fontbonne University.
After about ten years of school and work life in St. Louis, Anne met Erich Vieth, a fellow student in a creative writing class. In 1995, they began their married life on Flora Place in the Shaw Neighborhood of St. Louis. In 1999, they traveled to Wuhan, China (Hubei Province) to adopt one-year old JuJu. Two years later, they traveled to Changsha, China (Hunan Province), so that nine-month-old Charlotte could become JuJu’s little sister. Anne now had a home and family that she treasured for the rest of her life. JuJu and Charlotte are now confident young adults. JuJu, a recent graduate of Loyola, is a practicing nurse. Charlotte is in her third year in the Business Program at the University of Denver.
Having taken time off from her career to raise the girls, in 2008 Anne enrolled in a remote Masters program in creative non-fiction writing. Her writing served as an outlet for exploring the ways that people connect with one another. Her writing combined her natural creative gifts with her keen observation abilities and her wry humor. She wrote mostly about her own life, the people around her, and the hopes, doubts, dreams that she had for them. As she did with her flute playing, she mostly remained private about her writing, a privacy that we need to continue to respect despite the great desire to look into her soul and private thoughts.
As important as her writing was, many of us knew Anne from her many walks around the Shaw Neighborhood and Tower Grove Park, most recently with her large brown-sugar-colored dog she named “Biscotti.” Anyone who has walked with Anne knows that she was a fast walker, but she was also known as an unofficial ambassador for the Shaw Neighborhood. After her walks she would share her pictures, quips, and thoughts via Facebook. She knitted her community together, earning a following of kind-hearted people who enjoyed her artistic eye and her humorous powers of observation. In one post she observed “Touches of beauty go a long way to lifting my spirits….you?”
As the youngest and healthiest of the eight Jay children we expected Anne to be the last one standing. Cancer struck, and then a fatal cardiac arrest on Christmas Eve. Anne was taken from us all too suddenly. Now we must all take our own long walks, take our own beautiful pictures, and make witty observations to send, via Facebook, to JuJu and Charlotte.
Note: We are in the process of creating a more expansive memorial webpage for Anne. We invite your contributions, including photos, stories, thoughts, poems, vignettes—anything that you would like to share to celebrate Anne. We really want to hear from you. We’ve set up a special email address for receiving your contributions (Please don’t use FB or Messenger for these contributions). Use this email address: aojmemories@gmail.com Thank you for contributing!
Anne was a wonderful mother and loved her daughters and her family so deeply. She was a great friend to so many and I enjoyed her humor and laughter throughout the years.
Anne will be missed by many and her memory will live on in our hearts.
Anne was a beautiful soul who graced the New City School halls. She always had a positive word and a warm and welcoming smile. God speed Anne and I hope your walking on the clouds and taking gorgeous pictures of the landscape. JuJu, Charlotte and Erich you now have your very own guardian angel to watch over and protect you.
RIP dear Anne, you were loved as much as you gave love. Hugs, Lauren
Many blessings Anne- I will miss your clever mind, free spirit and braids until we meet in heaven. Your life on this earth was a tapestry of love and kindness. Your spirit lives on in your daughters and they will carry forward your dignity and grace. Love you Anne ???????? beloved friend. You are deeply missed.
Annie O Jay had such amazing gifts. She was one of the most inspiring creatures at Kenyon. I am so sorry for your loss.
I knew who Anne was from NCS, my kids were a bit younger, so I did not really get to know her until I started doing Kelly Martin’s yoga class. I always looked forward to seeing Anne and chatting about anything and everything. I loved her wisdom, kindness, and sense of humor. I feel lucky to have known her and know that her memory will be a blessing to all who knew her.
Anne was such a kind soul who taught me to find the positive in anything. A perfect example was when all of our girls were young, calling the random gunfire “urban fireworks”.
I posted this on Facebook after Anne left us and I spent a few days in tears and, well, dumbfounded. I’m putting it here because it speaks my heart. I will miss her always.
I lost a dear friend this week. For me, it was sudden and utterly startling, even before the grief had a chance to set in. She lived a wonderfully healthy lifestyle – long walks every day, with a stride that made me feel like a little kid all those times I’d walked with her, pushing strollers – I’d have to jog every few steps just to keep up. She ate no junk food, she did yoga, she hardly ever wore make-up. I’d give anything to have that kind of confidence in my own physical being – and yet hers turned on her. Cancer snuck in and ravaged her in secret, pretending to be other things, pretending to be indigestion, aging joints, a malfunctioning thyroid. When the cancer was found, it was advanced, stage 4. The medical people in my family, my daughter and my dad, both knew what lay ahead. My daughter told me gently, even as I optimistically planned to sit with my friend during chemo next month. Masked and socially distanced, of course, but there. Now I have no plan, no schedule. Not for the grieving, not for the help I desperately want to give her daughters.
Anne and I spent at least part of every day together, it seems, for several years. We parented side-by-side, neighbors bound by the bond of adoption. We supported each other through my divorce and then hers, buoying each others’ spirits, listening to the laments of all that goes along with that and sharing how to ease it for the girls.
Our girls spent their time together at her house – we had cats and allergies prevented long time periods at ours. I spent hours in Anne’s kitchen or on her back porch while they played. She took my youngest daughter on family trips to Nantucket, weekend sojourns to Pere Marquette – because she loved her, loved how well she fit with her own daughters.
We parented through school together, and even though our girls found their own friend groups and interests, they remained like cousins – the family you don’t see often but with whom you pick right back up, comfortable together, because a shared history built a solid foundation you didn’t even notice. That’s what I had with Anne. The last few years, we’d seen each other infrequently, no longer neighbors, mostly keeping up on Facebook. But we’d see each other at the Shaw Art Fair every year, and Walter and I visited her and Scotti when Walt was just a year old. We felt like no time had passed – and yet we had girls in college to discuss. We sat on her porch and watched the dogs romp and caught up on the details of daughters and work and life and love. She was family.
And now she’s gone. I’m not really sure what to do with that. I know her daughters are heartbroken and will never be without this grief, even as it will change. But they are also young adults – and because Anne raised them, they are strong and resilient. She gave them a foundation that will stay solid under their feet, even as they grieve, even as they spread their wings to find adventure and their places in the world. Their dad will support them, and Anne has a huge, sprawling family who will never leave them without. The rest of us, I suppose, will find our way without her in our own ways. She will always be there, with her radiant smile and wicked sense of humor, in the memories of my daughters’ childhood. And I imagine she’ll be around when I walk my boys in the park, always trying to remember to lengthen my stride, to stretch just a bit further as I go. Try to keep up with Anne, I’ve always told myself at those times. Impossible, I know, but I’ll try.
Thank you, Jay family, for organizing Anne’s lovely service. I imagine that you are still struggling to cope with her passing. Even though I only got to see her at big family events, I always loved seeing her and talking to her. She had a wonderfully wry sense of humor and we enjoyed our cousin- and youngest of a big family -bond. She is in my thoughts a lot these days, as are all of you. Take care of Cynthia and yourselves. Much love, Helena
I am moved beyond words by what I have read, what I have heard, about my dear youngest child Anne from people who knew her so well, so far from where I think she still called “home”. She slipped away unexpectedly after such a hard year, with worse to come: that was a mercy for her, and for us who would have known what she was going through, but oh!, but oh! She leaves a hole in the lives of so many, and I have been able to keep the memory of my adult daughter so much livelier, through the thoughts of those who remembered her so clearly. I send my thanks to you all…
Anne was an amazing gift to all of us lucky enough to have known and loved her. As a friend who knew her well in the 1970’s and 80’s, and then reconnected just a few years ago, I saw at least some of what endured in her over all those years: an abiding passion for the beauties of the natural world, a probing intellect and abundant talent for writing, a disarming capacity for mirth and joy, and that overarching devotion and unqualified love and care, constant and unyielding, for the people in her orbit. To her family and particularly to her girls, whom she loved above all else, sending wishes of strength and peace in this time of unthinkable loss, along with deepest sympathies.
Oh Dear! Oh NO! I am just now (in May!) discovering the news About Anne Jay. Clearly, I am no longer an active part of her life, but I am shaken and alarmed and have already passed the news to my brothers who also knew her when we were all little. For me, she is Annejay in braids and overalls, next door with a trampoline and an impossibly cool family.
With love and sympathy to all the Jays from long ago,
Lisa
I was in St. Louis this past week and visited the bench in Tower Grove Park dedicated to Anne. It was so comforting and meaningful to me. I think of her often and miss her greatly. All the best to her family.