Obituary of Elinor Jane Grohs

Elinor Jane Grohs, 84, died November 18, 2024, from Alzheimer’s disease.  Jane was a Mainer, a teacher, a traveler, a life-long friend, and beloved Mom and Grammy.

Jane was born October 13,1940 in Brewer, the daughter of Joseph Howard Laing, Jr. and Alice Irene (Turner).  Jane was a 1958 graduate of Brewer High School and received her BA at the University of Maine, Orono in 1962. After graduation she moved to Connecticut to teach and met her husband George when he amusingly placed a snake in her desk drawer to capture her attention.  Together they moved back to Maine, purchasing a farm on Simonton Road in Camden where she lived for 60 years, developing life-long friends and raising two brilliant and beautiful children, and many, many pets including ever present yellow “kitty boys”.

Jane was a teacher in Camden-Rockport elementary schools having a positive and formative influence on countless young students.  She was a beloved, favorite teacher and cherished colleague to her fellow educators.  She travelled to Washington, DC for a Teacher Leader program with the National Geographic Society and became a leader in the Maine State Geography Bee.  She earned a Master’s degree in Geography from the University of Maine.  She enjoyed knitting (there was never a shortage of socks, hats, sweaters) and gardening.  She was an avid reader in many book clubs and a founding member of the Nancy Bentley book club that has continued for 35 years.  She and her family operated Dan’s Ice Cream Parlor next to the dam in Camden Harbor and created Simonton Corner 4-H Club for her children and kids across Knox County to learn how to care for horses, sheep, knit, sew, cook, and give presentations.  It was emblematic of her commitment to education.

While Jane traveled extensively across the US, visiting National Parks and taking the family to Disney World in the summer, visiting family in Connecticut and Michigan, and internationally exploring Turkey with the Camden Congregational Church, hiking across the Cotswolds and Lake District of England with her daughter, and exploring Ireland with friends, she always came home to Maine.  She laughed and worked with family at the farm in Burlington, enjoyed camp on Nicatous Lake, summer trips to Mt. Katahdin with friends from Simonton Road and family from Michigan, knitting trips to Monhegan Island, Coleman Pond with dear friends, and her well-tended property in Camden where friends and relatives could often find her ready to listen, share stories, solve crossword puzzles, and the world’s problems.  The final challenging years with Alzheimer’s were softened by expert PALS caregivers helping Jane stay in her home until the last few months of her life.  She loved watching wildlife down in the fields, including the ‘turkey boys’, from her back porch and rocked the hours away on the front porch.  She enjoyed the seasons on her property especially haying season where her fields turned into hay for the Belted Galloways and Aldemere Farms.

After retirement, Jane enjoyed several summers in Glacier National Park with her son, Justin, helping with boat tours and guiding hikes at Two Medicine Lake.  This was one of the happiest times in her life.  She was known in Glacier as “Jane from Maine”.   She earned a Master Gardener certification from University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service and her green thumb was on display and enjoyed by so many in her home filled with plants and generous property filled with incredible gardens.  She regularly traveled to Montana and Colorado to spend time with her grandkids, getting to know their schools, assembling construction paper “word trees” on the walls in their homes, and delighting in them as they grew up.  Jane enjoyed documenting the family history each year contributing a summary of a branch of the family raised at the farm in Burlington before the annual Christmas Party.

Jane was gentle and cheerful, even-keeled, always interested in the world around her, independent, feisty, and possessed a well-developed sense of humor.

Jane is survived by her two children, Justin Taylor Grohs of Great Falls, MT and Dr. Bethany Jane O’Brien and her husband, Bill, of Fort Collins, CO; and grandchildren Abigail Grohs, Quinn Grohs, Jane O’Brien, and Varick O’Brien; as well as numerous relatives across the great state of Maine. Jane was predeceased by her parents, her 2-year-old son Peter Harrison Grohs, her brother Joseph H. Laing, III, and her former husband, George Jacob Grohs, III.

A celebration of Jane’s long and rich life will be held at her home at 60 Simonton Road where her presence is still strongly felt.  Friends and family are welcome to come share stories and memories, laugh and cry together on June 28, 2025 from 2 to 5 pm. Interment will take place at the Turner Family Farm in Burlington when the autumn colors are in their glory. Memorial contributions can be made to the Camden Public Library in honor of her love of reading and teaching others to read (Camden Public Library Fund, 55 Main St. Camden, ME 04843, EIN 27-3304822).

A poem from her friend and principal Marvin Higgins on the event of her retirement as a 4^th grade teacher:

“Jane Grohs is my teacher, I shall not want.

She maketh me to feel good about myself,

she leadeth me beside the waters of learning.

She restoreth my dignity, she leadeth my in the paths of righteousness for my own sake.

Yea though I enter the awesome world of big people’s schools,

I will not be afraid, for she is with me; her voice and touch, they comfort me.

She prepares the lessons before me in the presence of mine ignorance;

she annointeth my head with the oil of praise; my pride runneth over.

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow her all the days of her life

and I will dwell in the house of her influence on me forever.”