Mary Jane “Janie” Ward passed away peacefully at Skagit Hospital early on 09 November 2022 from complications related to pneumonia. She was 95 years old, having been born on 26 December 1926 in Bloomfield, New Jersey to Karl and Helen Kruming. She was the second of five children born to the Krumings. The Depression forced the family to move back to Detroit in the early 1930’s. Janie graduated from Pershing High School in 1945 and was admitted into the nursing program at Evangelical Deaconess Hospital in Detroit that fall. Hers was the last class at this school trained under the auspices of the Cadet Nurse Corps, a program in which Congress paid for the nursing training. Following her completion of the Registered Nurse program, Janie accepted a commission in the US Army in early 1949 and was sent to Fort Sam Houston in Austin, Texas for her initial training and first assignment. That summer, the Air Force Nurse Corps emerged from the Army Nurse Corps as a response to the ever-growing aeromedical evacuations of injured service members. Janie’s unit was one of those selected for the transition.
While assigned in Fort Sam Houston, Janie met a handsome Navy pilot, Donald S. Ward, who was training to fly fighter jets at Corpus Christi, Texas. The two married in December 1949; at that time the services did not allow their female officers to be married, so Janie was forced to separate from the Air Force. The young couple made their first home in Coronado, California, and thus began a twenty plus year adventure in the Navy which involved moving every two to three years. Duty stations included Coronado, CA (twice), Corpus Christi, TX, Jacksonville, FL, Portsmouth, VA, Glenview, IL, and a two-year stint in Boulder, CO for Don to complete his degree. Each of those duty stations (except Illinois) also added another child to the family so they had six kids by thetime they ended up in Oak Harbor for duty in A-3 (Heavy Attack) squadrons at NAS Whidbey. Janie managed the moves and the children and Don’s frequent absences to sea duty with skill.
She continued nursing as much as possible, sometimes in a paid position, sometimes as a volunteer. She was heavily involved as a Scout leader with all her children, as Cub Scouts, Brownies, Girl Scouts and, finally, coed Sea Explorers. After the children grew up and left the home, she was active with the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary. She cooked Sunday dinners for sailors at a local church. She volunteered in the
immunization clinic at NAS Whidbey Hospital for over thirty years and was named Volunteer of the Year for Naval Hospital, Oak Harbor in 1991, 1993, 1998 and 2001. She ultimately served 15,906 volunteer hours.
Janie loved – not particularly in this order – reading, her family, cooking for large groups of people, camping, nature and the outdoors, quiet, reading, John Wayne movies, David Letterman, doughnuts on Friday, and reading.
Janie was preceded in death by her parents, her four siblings, her husband, and two sons, William Ray and Robert Wayne. She is survived by daughters Lynn Ann Ward, Jean Alice Marshall, Donna Sue Holly, and Janice Kay Ward. Janie was able to boast about her seventeen grandchildren and seventeen great grandchildren and did so frequently. The family very much appreciates the tender and loving care Janie received from the caregivers at Summer Hill Assisted Living Facility for the past four years, and from the nurses and doctors at Skagit Hospital during her brief, final illness.
