Jane Marie Scanlon

Jane Marie Moody Scanlon passed away peacefully in hospice care on September 13, 2026, with her family beside her, near her 98th birthday. She lived every one of those years with purpose.

Born in Youngstown, Ohio, to James L. and Pauline Burris Moody, Jane grew up in McDonald alongside her sister, Ruth Ann Williams. Music came early: she studied piano and organ and served as organist at her church before entering the Conservatory of Music at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea. There she met John Scanlon, a young World War II veteran newly home from service — the beginning of a 65-year marriage that would carry them across the country and around the world.

Their five children were born in Berea. John’s work as a comptroller, and later a career in federal civil service, took the family to Dallas, then to Huntington Beach and Coronado, California, where Jane built a civil service career of her own, serving 20 years as an executive secretary. Once the children were grown, assignments in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Naples, Italy opened years of travel; among her favorite memories was seeing Pope John Paul II in Rome.

Grandchildren brought them home to Coronado, where Jane enjoyed afternoons with Jeanette and Brian after school. The Scanlon’s later moved to Florida for a quieter pace — though slowing down was never in Jane’s nature. In Ponte Vedra Beach she became a regular at the YMCA, inspiring fellow seniors toward fitness, and mastered more than 100-line dances from memory. She was active at the Senior Center and at Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church. After John’s passing in 2013, she and her daughter Judy traveled through Europe and Canada, as well as Alaska and Hawaii. At Del Webb Ponte Vedra she hired a personal trainer in her nineties. At Windsor Pointe, where she moved in 2025, she swam, took exercise classes, and returned to the bridge table. She enjoyed meeting many new friends there.

She was preceded in death by her husband, John; her sons, John and Jerome; and her sister, Ruth Ann. She is survived by her children James (Diane) of Coronado, California, Joseph (Wilawan) of Jacksonville, Florida, and Judy Reed of Ponte Vedra; her grandchildren Jeanette, Brian Reed, and Jay; and her great-grandson, Baine Bergstrom, who lovingly called her GG.

Jane was laid to rest beside John at Jacksonville National Cemetery. She will be remembered not for the number of her years, but for the way she spent them.