Lyman, Jane C.

Jane Cheever Lyman, 98, died peacefully on July 7, 2018, surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Born Jane Hunnewell Cheever on December 3, 1919, to Jane Welles (Sargent) Cheever and David Cheever, MD, a prominent Boston surgeon, Jane was the youngest of five children. She attended Westover School and Radcliffe College until she left college to care for her failing mother. She married Charles P. Lyman, a professor of anatomy at Harvard Medical School, on the eve of World War II. They were married 58 years, and their deep mutual devotion and affection were apparent to all who knew them.

Jane was born in Wellesley, but Canton was her home for all her adult life. Her husband was born here and they built their home on his ancestral Pakeen Farm when he returned from WWII, and there raised their five children. She rode horseback throughout the farm and neighboring woodlands, and ultimately participated with her husband and children in permanently preserving Pakeen, which is still in business today. Jane’s supermarket was Crowell’s Store, which supplied the few items she did not harvest, bake, or preserve herself, and where Peter and Eddy kept a running account for her and many others. The theatre group The Canton Informal Players was among her greatest joys in Canton. Jane loved classical music, was a patron of the Boston Symphony for more than 80 years, served on the Board of Overseers from 1980 to 1997, and attended concerts until her 97th year.

Jane’s other passions included gardening, traveling throughout the world, and most of all, nurturing a fun and exciting life with her family. She also joined her husband in his passions, fishing with him in places such as Scotland, Iceland, and Canada and hunting upland game in New England and the Carolinas. She often said, “With four older brothers, I soon learned that if you didn’t do what the boys did, you weren’t going to have much fun.” Her children benefited from this approach, learning skiing and sailing with her, careening on sleigh, toboggan, and cart rides behind her pony, riding with her (well into her late 80s) in the Rocky Mountains, traveling by train with her cross-country, and swimming in Buzzards Bay at her beloved old Cape Cod family home. As if her devotion to and care for her offspring were not enough, she opened her family circle to nieces and nephews and many young friends who were fortunate to enjoy all the adventures she shared with them as if they were her own.

Jane was a vigorous woman of strong mind and character. Relatives and friends lovingly relate childhood memories of her with a mixture of terror and admiration, recalling how her disapproving look could fell a wayward child at 50 yards. Those who knew her also knew not to cross her. An intruder who attempted to burglarize her home was ignorant of this principle. She was middle aged and alone, but nonetheless she chased the thief through the snow until he surrendered his loot rather than his life. Although she did not pursue a career (typical of the women of her generation), her intelligence and determination provided inspiration to the next generations of her female relatives, embracing the challenge of the new heights that women could achieve.

Jane was the last of her generation in both the Lyman and Cheever families. She leaves her children, Charles Peirson Lyman, Jr. and his wife, Lissa, Jane Lyman Bihldorff and her husband, John, Ted Lyman and his wife, Virginia Clarke, Russell Lyman and his wife, Marilyn Pyne Lyman, and Elizabeth Lyman and her husband, Bill Riegel, 12 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

A memorial is planned for this coming summer.

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Posted by Canton Citizen on Nov 23 2018. Filed under Obituaries. Both comments and pings are currently closed.