Jane Elizabeth Oliver, a beloved mother, sister, daughter, aunt, and friend, passed away on June 18, 2025 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota at the age of 59.

Jane was born on August 27, 1965 to Gordon and Jeanne Oliver in Hillsboro, WI. Growing up on the family farm with five older siblings meant her early years were never dull, full of shared chores and outdoor adventures. There, she developed her love for animals, spending her childhood feeding cows, sometimes even riding on them like horses, and playing with the farm dogs and cats. Despite moving away from the farm in middle school, she never could kick the schedule, continuing to wake up between 4:00am and 5:00am every morning for the remainder of her life.

Her love for animals continued beyond her farm years and she adopted many dogs and cats, including her beloved American Eskimo, Lucky, who would be her and her daughters’ loyal companion for 16 years, accompanying them on many hiking expeditions and road trips. Though she loved animals deeply, she developed the nickname “Killer” in college after accidentally freezing her roommate’s hamsters to death by leaving them on the air conditioner. She also ran over a cow or two with her car. Nobody’s perfect.

Jane always knew she wanted to be a mother and four days before her 30th birthday she gave birth to her first daughter, Tasha, soon to be followed by her second daughter, Maia, 19 months later. She poured her heart into her daughters and would proudly say they were her finest accomplishment.

Jane loved traveling and visited many places throughout her life, from touring Europe with her family as a child to living on Guam and visiting Korea as a young adult to following one of her favorite bands around Ireland in her early 50’s. She also had a particular affinity for nature and visited numerous US state parks.

Jane chose to spend time as a stay-at-home mom but as the girls grew, she decided to return to school to become an occupational therapist, using her daughters as guinea pigs to learn various therapeutic techniques. Jane loved to care for others and she spent years working in schools treating children, later moving into the nursing home setting to care for the elderly. Eventually Jane combined her passions and became a travel OT, working in New York, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and more.

Though she lived far from them in her adult life, Jane also loved her family and she moved back to Wisconsin in May 2024 to care for her two oldest sisters. Sadly, she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer just four months later in September 2024. After undergoing months of grueling chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatments and a radical mastectomy that was believed to have removed all the disease, Jane’s cancer was discovered to have spread to her brain. She underwent a lengthy brain surgery in April 2025 to remove the two largest lesions and made a remarkable recovery, walking and talking nearly like normal within a week. She then underwent five radiation treatments to shrink the remaining brain tumors.

Jane was at home continuing to recover from surgery and radiation when she developed a fever in late May. After nearly a week in the hospital, doctors discovered she had contracted fungal pneumonia. Though they initially believed she would make a full recovery, the combination of cancer, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation, two major surgeries, and long-term high dose steroids over such a short period of time detrimentally weakened her immune system. Despite this, the doctors were consistently surprised at Jane’s strength. She truly fought as hard as she possibly could until her very last breath.

Jane is preceded in death by her parents, Jeanne and Gordon Oliver, her sister, Mary Flock, and her beloved dogs Lucky, Estelle, and Pepe. She is survived by her daughters, Tasha and Maia, her siblings, Susan, Phyllis, John, and Laurie, and numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends. She’ll be forever remembered as “the little sister” who grew into the loving, generous, quiet, outdoorsy woman she was. 

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