JANE BLOOMFIELD Obituary

Very devastating to hear I met Chris one time and took care of Carrie's dad on the vineyard GHB.
I sent Carrie a letter telling her how grateful I was to do that. I'll sincerely miss them what awesome people.

Mike Ciannella

Remembrance, by Eric
2/17/2024

Dear friends and family,
Thank you for joining us today to celebrate the life of Jane Carey Blackwell Bloomfield. We have so many folks here today, connected to Carey in a myriad of ways. Some are family, including my family, my brother Chris’s family, and an extensive network of cousins. Others are connected to Carey through Christ Church, the Harvard Chaplaincy, Harvard University, Boston Symphony, Smith College, Grenzebach Glier and Associates, and the Dana Hall School, and more broadly through friendships across Cambridge, Boston, and Bedford. I also want to acknowledge that there are many more joining us today virtually, through the live streaming of this service. I want to especially acknowledge that Carey’s sister Scilla and her family are joining us virtually today from California and Colorado. They all made so many trips to visit with Mom in the past few months, and I am so grateful that they were able to be with Mom in the months and weeks before her passing. Scilla, Larry, Stanley, Tally, Sandal, and Indi, I want you to know that you are here with us today despite the miles.
Some of you knew my mom as Janie, or Jane, or Carey, or even Janie Carey. Some of you knew her when she was a Blackwell, a Goodson, or a Bloomfield, or all three. Mom went by many names, and for some it got confusing. For example, the lovely community at Carleton Willard Village, the retirement home where my mom spent her final year, first knew her as Jane. “I think I want to be Jane again,” she explained, feeling like life was coming full circle and it was time to return to her given name. Yet after a few months, she asked to be called Carey, returning to her middle name. After all these years, I think it felt right to her. But the fact that I have to list all of those names hints at what a rich and varied life my mom led, and the enormous impact she had on so many people.
Carey was the youngest of three daughters of George and Ethel Blackwell, and I know at her heart she thought of herself as a Blackwell. Through the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries, the Blackwell family was heavily involved in a wide variety of reform movements, from abolition and suffrage, to breaking down professional barriers facing women in medicine and religion, to aiding Armenian refugee communities in the Boston area. Carey was certainly proud of that lineage, but more importantly, she drew great strength and purpose from their example. It directed her own life, guiding her to pursue excellence, and above all, to try to make the world better.
She was born in Lake Forest, Illinois, where her father George was teaching high school chemistry and her mother Ethel was teaching piano. They then moved to Weston, where George became the head of the Rivers School, while Mom went to Dana Hall, seeding friendships that would last a lifetime. Many of those friends are here today, in person or virtually, as she greatly enjoyed connecting with her class of 1966 classmates through the years. Of course, Dana Hall would figure prominently in her life, where she would serve as a Trustee, a Corporator, and an advisor on fundraising. She spent summers in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, a place that Blackwells had found refuge in since the mid-19th century and where she brought me and my family just a year and a half ago. After high school, she went to Brown University and then transferred to the University of Rochester to finish her college degree and marry my dad, Max Goodson. They then moved to San Francisco, where she pursued a master's degree in French Literature and had me. In 1976, Max and Carey moved to Cambridge, had my brother Christopher, and mom began working for Harvard Business School.
In her professional life, Carey worked with a wide variety of nonprofits around fundraising and philanthropy, including Harvard Business School, the World Affairs Council, Smith College, the Boston Symphony, and many more as a consultant with Grenzebach Glier and Associates. Many of you here probably got to know her first in this context. That side of my mom, that professional side, always impressed me. She was focused and sharp, yet kind and attentive. Often the smartest person in the room is not the one saying the most but the one listening the hardest, and that was my mom. And I know others saw Mom’s commitment to her work. When I called Grenzebach Glier to tell them of Carey’s passing, the woman I spoke with proclaimed that Mom was the “most professional” person with whom she had ever worked. I believe it. I think mom worked so hard at these jobs because she saw the larger importance of such work. Helping nonprofits raise money so that they could in turn reach their goals of spreading knowledge and culture to the world was something Carey was deeply committed to. In her professional life, Mom was sort of a force multiplier, exponentially increasing the good in the world.
And this focus on giving back was a major part of her personal life as well. She volunteered with the communities of Christ Church, the Harvard Chaplaincy, and the Dana Hall School, to name a few. And she provided that guidance right up to the end. Just a few months ago she was zooming in to trustee meetings at the Dana Hall School. And now that I have her mail forwarded to my home, I am amazed at the number and variety of charitable organizations mailing her. Just the other day I was working with Carey’s accountant on preparing her Tax filing for 2023, and I handed him a two-page long list of mom’s charitable contributions for the year. His eyebrows raised.
Of course, Mom took time for herself, especially after retiring. She loved gardening at her home on Blanchard Rd. in Cambridge, where many of you got to know her. She was proud of her bleeding hearts, delighted in the hedgehog that lived under her deck, and frustrated by the deer that ate her hostas. It was there that she continued many lifelong friendships and forged new ones with neighbors in the area. And of course, when she moved to Carlton Willard Village just over a year ago, she made a whole new batch of friends, many of whom visited with her in her final weeks. Before visiting with Carey I always had to call ahead, as her social calendar was quite packed. Thank you to all the lovely folks at Carlton Willard for the friendship and support you showed my mom.
In her final weeks, I had the honor of visiting with her often. She surprised the doctors with how hard she held on and frustrated them with her regular refusal of morphine. Strong-willed to the end, she wanted agency and to be present through the whole process. And she was present, as I sat on her bedside and read the cards and emails and text messages that you all sent. Thank you all for your well wishes and prayers. She heard them all. And to the end, she remained true to her character: a fighter who cared deeply for those around her. When my cousin Tally sent a message saying that she was praying for Carey, my mom whispered that she was praying for Tally too.
Lucy Stone, the nineteenth-century abolitionist and suffragette, and Carey’s great, great, great aunt, as she transitioned on to her next life, left these final words to her daughter Alice: “Make the world better.” I feel Carey lived those words.
Mom was Blackwell through and through. So much so that it left me with a sneaking suspicion
While preparing this remembrance, I decided to put in a quick call to Mt Auburn Cemetery, with a rather odd question. “What name did mom pick for her headstone?” I asked. I wonder how many times they have had that question from surviving family members. They very kindly checked, and as I suspected, the name Mom chose for eternity is Jane Carey Blackwell.
Thank you Mom, for all the love and guidance through the years, and the wonderful example you left for us all. We love you.

My Dear Auntie was an exemplary human being. She embodied kindness, morality, intelligence, and virtue. When I was in college, she was my home base; her gardens, cooking, fabulous outfits, and beautiful environment inspired me. Carey embodied loving family values. Over the years, she was a role model of professional contribution that made a difference in people's lives. She was a great spirit whose compassion and sweetness blessed this world.

My dear Eric and Chis, please accept my sincere and deep condolences to you and your families. I knew your mom as Jane, a wonderful woman and mother who opened her home to me and made my time in college and grad school better in every way. Her generosity, kindness and humor were enormous. Outstanding attributes in a tiny package. What an excellent and beautiful person she was.

Carey was an amazing woman whose gentleness and kindness was shared with everyone she met. We are blessed to have had Carey in our lives.

Carey was a wonderful colleague at GG+A and a good friend, always ready to offer insight or guidance when help was needed. She was a font of knowledge but also of good cheer and humor, never forgetting the broader purpose when a project encountered an obstacle. I admired her greatly, particularly her ability to bring light to the places where it was needed most and to hold strong to her observations and conclusions. I hold her memory in the light and hope that the care and support of her friends help sustain her family through these difficult days.

Mom was always a caring and supportive person. She was wonderful mom raising my brother and me. She was always there for friends and family in their moments of need. She took care of her father, George as he aged. She took care of my stepfather Dick as his health failed. I’m grateful for the love and support that mom brought to people in her life.

I had the great pleasure of working with Carey in her role at GG&A. I found her to be incredibly smart and thoughtful and she was a wonderful fundraiser. How lucky we were to get to learn from all her experiences. May her memory be a blessing to her children and grandchildren.