Here stays the neighborhood. Yes. For the love of home, we’re always steeping in it.

Even though another forever Fair Haven neighbor is now gone, the neighborhood stays, as always — right in that hometown heart. The one that swells with a different kind of pride and comfort that some unlucky souls will never understand.

That neighbor, the latest who has left the block, is Jane Croft. Born in Fair Haven, she lived her entire life there, always with that easy-going smile and soothing, welcoming cadence in her voice.

She was a lover of the simplest of things — soaking them up, taking them all in stride, always appreciating the smallest of gestures. That walk to the Acme. Prepping dinner for her passel of kids who ate at a (what I thought was very cool) giant picnic table with benches and slept in bunk beds. Holding her husband’s hand on their walks. Tending to her garden and pets. Going to Auxiliary meetings and fetes at the firehouse. Gazing out the front window sighing contentedly to just be home.

She was all about home. Sopping it all up in those snippets — like a hearty dunk in sauce. Appreciating all of it with that smile — that tender, endearing smile that assured that all was right on Parker, even if her world or yours was imploding. Home made it right to her. Always. She never left. She was a real Fair Haven girl.

So, if there is to be any solace for another great neighbor lost, it’s that she died at that home in that Fair Haven that made everything right on March 7.

When her daughter told me of her passing, I thought two things: first, that it was a kind of hometown poetic justice that she passed in the place she so loved and was born, the place that was such a huge chunk of her; second, that I never made it back for another promised visit with a neighbor and family friend whose house I drove or walked right by far too often without a pause. Regrets. Again.

She wasn’t like Mr. Lang, though, taunting and teasing about my unfulfilled promises of coming “right back.” No. Then again, he had adopted his own neighborly cause of being a second dad. I mean, let’s face it, he had the special acumen for that which no one else could ever have.

No. Jane, always agreeable, welcoming and just plain nice, would tilt her head when a visit promise was made and say, “Ohhhh, how niiiice. Lovely. You’re always welcome, dear.” Eight years later …

She didn’t know that just as recently as a few weeks ago, another Fair Haven friend and I were planning a visit. We really were. I swear we were. Last I chatted with her about this ever-so-put-off grand visit was at her husband Jack’s funeral in 2014. I still lived down the street.

Jack used to send me hand-written notes, mailed from down the block, commending my work, assuring me of my parents’ posthumous pride in it. I kept them on the fridge as a reminder of what hometown family really meant. It meant a lot. Still does. Always will. The fridge pin-up always does. It’s a home-spun award, like its writer.

Jane, when I, at the funeral, made yet another promise to visit, said she had lots of tomatoes from her garden for me. She knew my mom would have loved that. I had told her I would take her up on the offer and make her some homemade sauce to boot. Needless to say, the tomatoes are sun-crisped and disintegrated now and that visit sauce is still steeping — with guilt-laden love.

Yet, the longer a homemade sauce steeps, the tastier it gets. Just like that love of home and the neighborhood. Seeds replanted, sprouting fruit. Ready for the picking, prepping, steeping. Some may be reading this, or not, thinking all that steeping and tomato talk doesn’t matter, because she’s gone now. That’s nice, but they didn’t really know her, anyway, they’re probably thinking as they complain about some gadfly nonsense.

In fact, some newer neighbors may not even know she was there, looking out the window, or taking a walk, waving, nodding and smiling at the new kids, young parents, as she once was, knowing they had a magical childhood and life ahead in a little Utopia she knew well. After all, she helped make it, from scratch, one savored piece of fruit at a time. Plopped right into that promised sauce pot. They did know her. After all, they were savoring all the goodness of what she helped make all those 89 years. Right there … on the block.

Some are left to keep steeping that sauce. They serve up the tastiest portions, one at a time. Partake. Don’t walk by. Don’t drive by. Stop. Smile, without judgement or complaint, as she did. Say “Hello.” Have a taste. Learn how to make it, how to cook up a real neighborhood, offering the simplest of ingredients — bright fruit and a pot to steep in.

Thank you, Jane, for always being there … on the block with a little something good to serve up, an open door and a deep, enduring, true love of home. I want you to know that I, for one, am always steeping that promised sauce, having learned from the best on the block. Serving it up is remembering those who taught us, knowingly or not. Have a taste, folks. Nothing more delicious.

More about Fair Haven-raised Jane Croft, my mom’s friend and neighbor, longtime Fair Haven Fire Department Auxiliary member and 1950 RFH (then Rumson High School) graduate …

Jane A. Croft, a lifelong Fair Haven resident, passed away at home on March 7. She was 89.

Born in Fair Haven to Charles and Mary (Dennis) Doughty, Jane was a 1950 graduate of then Rumson High School, where she was captain of the girls basketball team, a 62-year member of Fair Haven Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary, and a lifetime communicant of Church of the Nativity in Fair Haven. 

Jane was predeceased by: her parents; and her beloved husband of 63 years, John “Jack” Croft (in 2014).

She is survived by: her sons, John F. Jr. and wife Kathy, of Silver Spring, MD, Steven J. and wife Catherine, of Lake Hopatcong, David P. and wife Sandra M., of NH, and Paul J. and wife Kathleen of Woodbridge; daughters, Lynn Hervilly and husband Jean, of Fair Haven, Karen Martin and husband John, of Freehold, Mary Croft and spouse Jessica Hedler, of Maricopa, AZ, and Florence Milutinovic and husband Jim, of State College, PA; grandchildren, John III, Carol, Taylor, Stephanie, Sophie, Matthew, Brian, Jessica, Ryan, Andrew, Kevin, Mark, Erin, Jarmo, and Jack; great-grandchildren, Cole, Jaden, Johnny, Isla and Theodore and her sister, Mary Adelaide Hedge. 

Visitation will be held on Fri., March 11, from 6 to 8 p.m.  
at John E. Day Funeral Home, Red Bank. A funeral home service will take place at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 12. Burial will follow at Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Middletown. 

In lieu of flowers donations may be made to Fair Haven Fire Deptartment Auxiliary, 645 River Road, Fair Haven, NJ 07704. 

— Photos/Kathy Robbins and Fair Haven Fire Department Media

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