Jan Hall-Stinson passed away unexpectedly on March 10,2020. A light has gone out in the world.

Jan was the very proud mother of her two sons, Aaron and Sam, a longtime staff member of Crossroads Rhode Island, where she served as Director of Housing for Kingstown Crossings, and a vibrant advocate and active member of the Rhode Island social service community. In various capacities, she served professionally with the RI Governor's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, South County Community Action, the Domestic Violence Resource Center, Self-Help, Inc., and the North Kingstown School Dept., in addition to her more recent work with Crossroads Rhode Island. She has also served on the boards of the South County Community Development Corporation, the Salvation Army, the Concerned Citizens of Davisville, and the North Kingstown Food Pantry. Jan's work with Crossroads Rhode Island on behalf of families in need, was a labor of love, encompassing the transition from the former navy housing to the construction of Kingstown Crossing, offering housing and support services. Her presence, warmth, humor and energy will be greatly missed.

Jan attended the Palfrey St. School in Watertown, Mass., and received a BA and an MBA (class of 1984) from the University of Rhode Island. Her interests (and majors) varied (month to month, sometimes week to week) and ranged from marine biology to urban planning. An avid sailor, she enjoyed spending time on the water, reluctantly pausing only when the arrival of children intervened. Jan took great satisfaction in jury rigging left-handed solutions to solve right-handed tasks, indelibly scarring her right-handed sons, who will, among other skills, forever shoot pool left-handed. Not one to rely on the straight-forward navigational promptings of a GPS, she trusted her sense of adventure over her sense of direction. Few things enticed her as much as a "˜no trespass' sign; it was always about the journey. Jan hated to cook, which may be why she tolerated Glenn, her partner for 36 years, for as long as she did. In her youth, she was an avid jewelry crafter, and more recently, an enthusiastic potter. She often took refuge in a studio she shared at Shady Lea Mill, finding friendship and encouragement there, relishing increasingly frequent victories in her ongoing battles with clay. In search of better mud, she and Glenn also recently discovered the beauty and allure of the North Carolina mountains, to which they had hoped to return.

Jan is survived by her husband, Glenn, her sons Aaron and Samuel, their partners, Jocelyn and Brooke, respectively, her mother, Helen, all of North Kingstown, RI, and her father, Charles, of Falmouth, Mass.

The family is requesting that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Jan's memory to either Crossroads Rhode Island, https://www.crossroadsri.org or to the Domestic Violence Resource Center https://www.dvrc-or.org .

A celebration of Jan's life will be held at a date to be determined in the near future, with notice and arrangements through Cranston-Murphy Funeral Home. Burial will be in Quidnessett Memorial Cemetery, the funeral itself will be private.


Beannacht / Blessing
John O'Donohue

For Josie, my mother

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
________________________________________
John O'Donohue
from Echoes of Memory (Transworld Publishing, 2010) reproduced by permission of the author's Estate

 

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