Memorial Service for Jeanne Tuesday, May 23
Jeanne died Friday morning. She was 59 years old. She died peacefully in the arms of her son and husband.
The memorial service for Jeanne Raisler will be held on Tuesday, May 23 at 11:00 am, hosted by the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Havurah at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Click here for directions. The burial service will follow at the Forest Hills Cemetery.
Jeanne's family will be receiving visitors Wendesday and Thursday from 4-8pm with services at 7pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 4-8pm. The fanily will be gathering privately on Friday.
Friends coming from out of town may click here for lodging. The nearest airport is the Detroit Metro Airport(DTW), about 25 miles east of Ann Arbor.
In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care attn: Global HIV Nursing Specialty Committee, or the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Obituaries will be printed in the New York Times and the Ann Arbor News on Monday, May 22.
Click here to see the announcement on the University of Michigan School of Nursing website.
Friends and family should feel welcome to share short stories or memories of Jeanne in the comments section. Thank you for all your love and support.
posted by Jeanne's_BMT @ 1:02 PM
22 Comments:
Hello Jon, Josina and Josh,
I am so sorry to hear about Jeanne. You are an awesome family. Words on an email cannot express the depth of sympathy I feel for all of you at this time. Jeanne fought a courageous battle and led an amazingly full life. I will always remember her as a friend and mentor. Her tenacity at getting the job done and her smile while doing so, will be the things I remember the most.
I thank you for this blog. It has helped all of us to be there in spirit through out her fight.
Please take care of each other as you took wonderful care of her,
Debbie Richmond
Dear Ones,
Your spirits and Jeanne's are being held up out here in California, as all who love you keep you in our thoughts. You already know how much Jeanne's life and yours have touched so many - my heart is there with you. I am so sorry. I am also grateful for all of your lives and the love that seems to emanate from this webpage.
Take care.
Becky
I am saddened this morning when I read of you losing Jeanne. She was one of my instructors at U of M from 1997-1999 in the midwifery program. She was an inspiration in so many ways and will be deeply missed.
With sympathy,
Polly Bennett
A number of people in the Ann Arbor area can accommodate guests for the services for Jeanne. Please contact Michelle O'Grady, 734-761-8079 or Gloria Crothers, 734-763-3710. mog
A beautiful light has left our community in Jeanne's passing. Yet, it will live on, forever, through the lives of the children she loved and all those that she touched with her compassion. I will miss the spontaneous and thoughtful talks we had when running into each other at the co-op or market. Sharing munchies and more conversation at the walls of Ft. Benning during the SOA Vigil is another fond memory that I have. I send you all courage and warm thoughts as you move through these most painful days.
Judith Cawhorn
The School of Nursing has posted Jeanne's picture, and this information, on the UM midwifery education program's website. mog
Our sincerest condolences to Jon, Josh and Josina,
We feel so lucky to have known and been touched by the tremendous spirit and work of Jeanne. We met Jon and Jeanne in Barcelona at the International AIDS conference in 2002. Of course we had heard of this phenomenal couple from all of our colleagues at HAI. As soon as we met, it was like two kindred couple souls. Jon and Jeanne had the same shared dedication to equality and health that my husband and I share. They have gone out of their way in the past 5 years to nurture and mentor us and we feel so lucky to have been able to learn from them and appreciate their insights, kindness and warmth. Also, Jeanne gave me a wonderful prenatal check up in her hotel room in Barcelona...
Since our first meeting they came numerous times to Mozambique to work with us and the Ministry of Health, furthering the expansion of access to AIDS treatment.
We were so lucky that they came to dinner at our house in Seattle in February of this year. Jon--our thoughts and love are with you now. We will always remember the joy that Jeanne brought to the world and the incredible role model of the love you two share.
love
Sarah, Kenny, Lola and Shelter (the Gimbel-Sherr's)
Dear John, Josh, and Josina:
I am so sorry for Jeanne's death. I am writing to you because I will not be able to attend her funeral. I am in Chapel Hill for my work.
I had profound respect for Jeanne's determination to do right things always. And I will. Jeanne and I were not always in agreements, but we both respected each other's view.
She showed me (and others) that it took a courage to do a right thing. Because we are all incomplete, one has to have a tremendous courage to do a right things as doing so exposes one's incompleteness to public. Many of us are so scared to expose our incompleteness. So we find many excuses to avoid doing right things.
Jeanne had never allowed herself to be a coward. I always wanted to have her strength.
I will miss her profoundly, but I must learn from her finally not to be a coward. I hope Jeanne will guide me my act for a long time.
I hope you find yourself how lucky you are to had Jeanne as your wife and mother at this saddest time in your life.
With love,
SeonAe Yeo
Hey Josh: I'm so sorry to hear the news. Of course I never met your mother, but knowing you and the depth of your passion, integrity, compassion and joyfulness I can only imagine how amazing your mother must have been. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help you and your family and know that we're thinking of you back here in Washington...With Love, Nathan
MOG: Here is what I said at the service for Jeanne.
I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to talk about Jeanne’s work. Since I can only speak directly to a small segment of her career and life, I needed input from a broader group. I asked for statements from Jeanne’s friends and colleagues across the country. Jeanne was admired throughout the country, indeed the world. So, this was compiled from the reflections of dozens of Jeanne's friends and colleagues.
I first met Jeanne when she arrived here at Michigan, and was immediately struck by her intensity and knowledge and caring. I was also struck by that characteristic gesture of hers, the movement of her hand that said:
“Of course we are going to do the very best job possible!” And she always did, and asked others to do the same. I’ve been privileged to be her friend and colleague.
I would like to open with the words of our dear friend and colleague Jody Lori, who is working in Africa at this moment:
It is with a very heavy heart that I send this message. Jeanne was an inspiration, mentor, best-friend, confidant, and hero to me in so many aspects of her life. I feel her spirit here with me and know the world is a better place because of her life. You are all constantly in my thoughts. Love, Jody
And these words from Holly Kennedy:
Jeanne taught us so much about being a humanitarian, vision, love, midwifery, and social justice. She was talented in so many ways, and a dear friend. We have lost one of the midwives so needed in our profession. I personally learned so much from her leadership and mentorship. I will forever miss our debates about "what should be and what can we work with"! I too, feel special to have been her friend and will miss her deeply.
As I read people’s reflections about Jeanne, I became aware that several themes were arising. The full record of reflections will be available but I would like to focus now on these highlights.
Jeanne had several cardinal Attributes:
Her attitude of persistence and determination (aka, stubbornness) to see challenges as opportunities. Everything was done with purpose and deliberation, and with enjoyment. Jeanne fought a courageous battle and led an amazingly full life. I will always remember Her tenacity. Her dedication and persistence, her courageous spirit and strength were very inspiring. Even in illness she had so much more energy than I! She faced it (her illness) from the beginning with courage and determination to do everything she could to recover. She was very clear-minded about it and understood the implications, but at the same time was upbeat and hopeful. And that paid off for her. She got some extra time. But not nearly enough. I know she left here both fighting every inch of the way to be able to live more, to give more and feeling inner peace. …I’ve looked on the blog at Jeanne's picture so many times over the last weeks. Just staring in her eyes.
Dedication and commitment: She has such light and joy and gifts of strength, tenderness, and giving of herself to others. She chose an amazing path of service; The list of her contributions goes on and on and extends to every dimension of midwifery and public health. So dynamic and passionate she was about things she cared about. Her work, her passion, her commitment to women, midwifery and social justice were always present in everything she did and in how she chose to live her life. There was no one more courageous or more truly devoted to her path. Though her life has been tragically cut short, she accomplished more in the years she had than most of us could have done with twice that time. She seemed to know she had travelled on her own remarkable path (so much of it of her own making) and she was ready to travel the rest of the way.
Jeanne had many Roles:
Educator: deeply committed, esteemed educator. She had high standards for students, and was interested in helping her students clinically while serving the maternity patients.
Inspiration, mentor, best-friend, confidant, and hero: with her enthusiasm and commitment for midwifery, Her work "shines" and it will continue to be a light for all of us to reach for. I will forever miss our debates about "what should be and what can we work with"! Jeanne has consistently contributed to the growth and advancement of the midwifery profession. She was an inspiration to us all, she will be sadly missed. I feel her spirit here with me and know the world is a better place because of her life.
Cherished colleague and friend to people throughout the world: with a quiet yet thoughtful approach to her work. Her heart, soul and love was for international work. Midwives from that group have emailed me to express their dismay of the loss of her in our world.
Esteemed, compassionate, and competent clinician: She really loved midwifery and the clients she met in Brooklyn, for the most part underserved women. She approached her delivery of care through the spirit of each client. A beautiful light has left our community in Jeanne's passing, yet, it will live on, forever, through the lives of the children she loved and all those that she touched with her compassion.
Jeanne was such an accomplished scholar: a superb writer and editor, respected journalist, invaluable peer reviewer and a prolific author. She was an esteemed and exemplary researcher. Her intellect was stunning; full of complex ideas that just seemed to flow from her brain. We were all in awe. But at the same time she had an earthy practicality too, and could pay attention to the mundane necessities that are part of life.
Activist: Jeanne taught us so much about a vision of social justice, love, midwifery and about being a humanitarian and advocate of the underserved both locally and internationally. She was a believer in justice and many times risked her freedom to demonstrate that.
Jeanne herself put people on notice about her ideals: Exactly 30 years ago, Jeanne joined the Editorial Board of the Journal of Nurse-Midwifery. In 1977, she wrote in her very first JNM Editorial:
“Changing our health system into one that really meets human needs
is a long, difficult process. The first step is understanding why things
are the way they are: who is shaping and benefitting from health care
as it now? What would a truly people-oriented health system look like?
Our ideas will be a basis for organizing for change, and our organizing
will further develop our ideas in the context of concrete struggles.”
In conclusion, these words from Mary Ann Shah:
Who can ever forget her engaging smile, her soft spoken charm, her tenacity when she believed in a position or a cause, her generous spirit of volunteerism, and so many other other attributes that were uniquely hers? We’ll say: we won’t forget, and no one who ever knew her will.
******************************************************************************************************
Dear Jonathan, Josh and Josina,
I think that I speak for everyone in Jeanne's high school class when I say how sorry we are to hear of her untimely death. It seems impossible that we have lost the fine, fierce intellect we came to know in class. I have admired Jeanne's work with mothers-to-be, and new mothers and babies. Her brave and focused fight for better HIV/AIDS care in Africa is a reminder that every single person can make an effort and a difference. Thank you for posting this blog and sharing Jeanne's brave struggle with us. I think she was blessed to have your love and support.
Cherry Young Vitale
To the family may God bless and comfort you at this time. Jeanne was a wonderful person to work with. love and prays. Jamie Smith. Office of Multicultural Affairs, School of Nursing
To the family may God bless and comfort you at this time. Jeanne was a wonderful person to work with. love and prays. Jamie Smith. Office of Multicultural Affairs, School of Nursing
Dear Jon, Josina and Josh: My deepest sympathies are with you at this time. Jeanne's passing has left the midwifery community poorer for her passing. She touched the lives of so many with her passion and committment.
Thank you for sharing her with us.
I also appreciated your keeping us updated through the blog on her valiant fight. I was particularly touched by the picture of the young Jeanne seemingly looking into the future with her life ready to unfold before her. The memorial service was a touching tribute to her life and work as well and a fitting send off. You are all in my thoughts and prayers. Deb Walker
Dear Jon,
My most sincere condolences to you and your family, my prayers are with you, she is in a better place-
Always,
Metti
To Jeanne's family,
I was a midwifery student of Jeanne's at U of M and am so sorry to learn of her passing. She was my research reader and my faculty advisor. She was an excellent mentor in both areas. She always pushed her students to be the best they could be. I respected her not only for her academic leadership, but also for the way she chose to lead the other parts of her life. Virginia Kelley said "There is nothing like a newborn baby to renew your spirit-and to buttress your resolve to make the world a better place." I believe Jeanne was drawn to midwifery to exemplify these words, making the world a better place for families, including her own. She loved all of you, and spoke so proudly of you often. May the memories you have of her help you through this very difficult time and give you peace.
Rose Fife CNM
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