SALT LAKE CITY--Jane Layton Stromquist was born and reared in Layton, Utah, mother and father Alean Watt Ellison Layton and Leonard Hill Layton. She traces the roots of her pioneer heritage to Christopher and George W. Layton, Ephraim P. Ellison and George Darling Watt, England's first Mormon convert, who won that privilege by being the first place winner in a foot race to the river Ribble in Lancashire, England.

Jane was educated in Davis County schools and after graduation, matriculated at the U of U, where she pledged at Pi Beta Phi, later elected president of this sorority. She majored in French at the University and studied one summer at the French School at Banff, near Lake Louise in Canada. Jane was an excellent pianist, studied for years with Flora Ferraro, later as an adult with Gladys Gladstone. Jane was knowledgeable in any artistic expression; painting, whether realistic or abstract, classical music, her preferences being Bach and Mozart, and was very fond of stage plays from Shakespeare to Mamet. Other artistic loves centered around buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright.With her husband she created the only Wright cottage in Utah, which a year before her death came back to the pair's ownership. Such a deed made her ecstatic. She also was a guiding principal in the restoration of the William Culmer house where she lived with her spouse for 23 years, during its impeccable restoration. This too was filled with music most days, her most loved pianist, Glenn Gould, who could be heard daily throughout the house. It also had an art exhibit beyond compare, not only those of her selection, but the permanent art of Henry Lavender Adolphus Culmer on walls and ceilings, that Culmer created in the house for his brother William.

Jane was a political activist, could talk any budding politician into the ground, tried for years to coax the Avenues Community Council into democratic procedures, but found although one can make a hole in a pail of water, the hole disappears once the finger is removed.

Jane was fearless, energetic, never turned pleadings of homeless people away from her door unless they were drunk. Then she delivered a lecture. Jane was a religious person, consistently frontal in her conduct, spiritual to a fault. Those who knew her could see the aura of truth and simplicity surrounding her. Her three children, Don L. Stromquist, Eve Christine Blackburn and George T. Stromquist, carry with them the tenets of solidity, morality and expressiveness that she taught them.

Jane was an individual, a person of beauty, sophistication, and rectitude. Characteristics that are found, but rarely in these times.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m., Wednesday, November 24, 1999 at the Kaysville Tabernacle, 198 West Center, with Patriarch Blaine Lindahl officiating. Friends and family will meet at the home at 33 "C" Street, Salt Lake City, Tuesday from 6-8 p.m. and Wednesday from 9:30-10:30 at the church. Interment Kaysville City Cemetery.