Thanks for taking the time to visit this page Jane's family has set up in her memory to reflect her love of elephants.

Jane's love of elephants began in visits as a child at the zoo in Cincinatti where she grew up.

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The following are some thoughts from Gene Cassidy, a friend and newspaper colleague. 

Jane McCann whose father told her stories of his horse dropping him at school and ambling on its own back to his family’s Meadows farmhouse in what is now the whirlwind ofFramingham’s Rte. 9 commercial district, passed away Thursday, March 14.

Ms. McCann had a career at The MetroWest Daily Newsfrom the time it was known as The Framingham News until she retired after the turn of the century. Her husband, John J. McCann, with whom she had five children, was a Framingham News and former Worcester Telegram & Gazette photographer, who died Aug. 31, 1977.

Ms. McCann’s death came days after the arrival of her eighth great-grandchild, whose bunting was adorned with an elephant, Ms. McCann’s favorite animal, and her talisman since a childhood visit to the zoo in Cincinnati, where she was born.

“She always asked for an elephant for Christmas or her birthday or such,” said her daughter Mary McCann Fiske, who lives in Rochester, Mass.

On Jan. 18, McCann Fiske celebrated her mother’s 95th birthday at the Mary Ann Morse Nursing Home in Natick with her sisters, Johanna Wittreich of Englewood, N.J., MarjorieEstridge of Winchester, Agnes McCann of Cohasset, and some friends.

Ms. McCann also had a son, James, who lives in Framingham, and regularly watched Boston Bruins hockey games with his mother, offering analysis of the action beyond the scope of the TV commentators as her eyesight became worse over the years.

Ms. McCann was born in Cincinnati to James Valentine Monahan and Margaret Post. Mr. Monahan, the boyhood horse-rider whose Irish immigrant family had farmed in Framingham,had become a landscape architect and moved to Ohio to find work on its wealthy estates.

Ms. Post was a distant member of the wealthy Post cereal family. Daughters Jane in 1918 and Margaret in 1923 were born.

But Margaret Post, Ms. McCann’s mother, died when Ms. McCann was 8.

Ms. McCann’s little sister “Peggy” Valentine, then 3, was sent to live on a farm.

Ms. McCann, who had already begun her education withFrench-speaking nuns, became a boarding-school student until she was 18. She said she received a superlative education, but because of lack of practice, was no longer fluent in French in later life.

During her career at The News, Ms. McCann was encyclopedic in her memory of local events and relentless in checking that her memories were accurate, whether that meant a trip to the newspaper’s library, a trip to the local courthouse, or a call to the town reference librarian.

She generously offered her help to new reporters, but the diminutive, chain-smoking McCann glared so fiercely that few dared approach her.

“She was a real sweet lady,” says former State editor and columnist Tim Greene, now a senior editor at Network World.“She was smarter than you and me and she was funny,” he said yesterday.

Greene also recalled another Jane’s traits – her love of horses and horse racing.

“She loved the horse track and often told stories about traveling around New England with her husband … visiting small tracks.

“Well into her retirement, she looked forward to traveling to Saratoga for race week with her daughter,” Greene said.

At Ms. McCann’s residence on Rose Kennedy Lane, the senior housing site in Framingham, she fed and eventually took in a stray cat she named Walter, after “The Secret Life of WalterMitty,” because she thought he must have had an interesting time on his own before settling in next to her on his own pillow.

Granddaughter Caitlin Wittreich said yesterday Ms. McCann said something at every family gathering that Caitlin always loved.

“She would say, ‘You know, if it weren't for me, none of you would be here,’ Caitlin said. “We always got a kick out of that.”