Jane Donovan Amorosi

Born in Brooklyn to James Britt Donovan and Mary McKenna Donovan in 1943, Jan was a devoted wife to Dr. Edward L. Amorosi for over 55 years, mother to Elizabeth/Beth, John (Alexandra), Patricia Muccia (David) and Edward, and grandmother to six — William, Caroline, Grace and Ashley Muccia, and Gus and Max Amorosi. Jan was also a loving sister, sister-in-law, aunt, godmother, cousin and friend to so many.

Jan graduated from Marymount School of New York and Marymount College in Arlington, Virginia. While at Marymount College, she also enjoyed a year abroad at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland which was the source of many of her favorite memories.

Following school, she worked in advertising at Lennen & Newell before becoming a dedicated wife, mother, homemaker and “partner” to her husband in his 50-year hematological oncology practice at NYU Langone Medical Center where she was a beloved figure by colleagues and patients alike. Jan was also a longtime member of the Junior League of New York and an active alumna of her high school (Marymount).

Jan was also an inveterate walker and motorist tirelessly crisscrossing the city streets. On most days, you could find her walking briskly — always with a stylish “pocketbook” — up and down East End Avenue and across Yorkville and the Upper East Side doing errands, bookended by daily trips to drive her husband to and from work (at all hours) and her kids to and from school and both pre- and after-school activities.

In addition to her devotion to her various roles as mother, wife, sister, family member and friend, she was incredibly proud of her father, James B. Donovan, and his many incredible accomplishments (e.g., General Counsel of the OSS right out of law school, Nuremburg prosecutor after WWII, negotiator of the nearly 10,000 Bay Pigs prisoner release and the exchange of Francis Gary Powers for Soviet spy Colonel Rudolph Abel after the U-2 incident and his defense of Abel up to the Supreme Court, etc.). While her father died at the age of 53 in 1970, he managed to achieve all of these amazing things while still remaining a doting father and husband. Much later in Jan’s life and much to her and her extended family’s delight, Tom Hanks portrayed her father (and Bono’s daughter portrayed Jan) in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies.

There are two other personal traits of Jan worth highlighting to give you a measure of her own idiosyncratic personality, charm and wondrousness, namely her relationship with the analogue telephone and her aversion to technology and how both defined her essential humanity. Taking each in turn, Jan rarely had time for herself and therefore for any lunches with friends, trips on her own or other personal dalliances, so her delicious pleasure were phone calls with the ones she loved or wished to come to love. In a manner that no member of any subsequent generation will ever be able to understand, she used the dial-up phone to curate, develop, repair, sustain, extend, grow and support her family and loved ones on a daily and continuous basis. There was nothing Machiavellian about whom she called, or the subject matter involved. It was all quite “Jan” in that every call was unscripted, unvarnished and, without question, stalwart in support of each call recipient (and loved one) and therefore, one of the many reasons that Jan built her own pre-digital “worldwide web” of support.

In addition, while Jan’s charming aversion to technology was itself sometimes perplexing, it also lent itself to her preternatural people skills. By way of example only, Jan owned a flip phone, never accessed the Internet, and rarely, if ever, interacted with an ATM machine. Since none of those technological developments were personal in nature (which is to say, they did not touch matters of the heart), they simply did not interest her. Instead, Jan relied on sheer kindness, good nature and interpersonal gifts to get to the same place. For example, when the family traveled to a new destination for a vacation, Jan would befriend the check-out person at the local grocery, and he or she would happily cash a check in an outsized sum for Jan. After all, who could resist that smile and her self-evident trustworthiness and humanity, notwithstanding store policy?

In sum, there are simply no words capable of describing how incredibly kind, sweet, vivacious, loving and giving Jan was on a daily basis, and throughout her life to everyone she met. A sweeter woman will never be known. She will be so greatly missed.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in memory of Jan Amorosi may be made to support NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, specifically supporting the Center for Blood Cancers. Please use this link to make your gift and please take care to note that your donation is being made in the memory of Jan Amorosi: tinyurl.com/49pttsf6.

Alternatively, checks may be made payable to “NYU Langone Health” and sent to the attention of Megan Trenery at NYU Langone Health, Office of Development, One Park Avenue, Floor 9, New York, NY 10016. Please note on the check that the donation is being made in Jan Amorosi’s memory.