Remembering Jane Stephenson’s 70 Years of Service with the Stanley Center

Jane (Stanley) Stephenson, a global citizen, was committed to the Stanley Center’s vision that all people share and sustain a secure and enduring peace with dignity, justice, and freedom. Jane’s contributions since the founding of the Center have made a lasting impact on the character and direction of our organization’s work.

With her passing, we mourn the last remaining anchor to the founding board of directors from 1956 and lose a voice with history, humor, and moral authority.

Jane, daughter to the Center’s founders C. Maxwell and Elizabeth (Holthues) Stanley and sister to founding board members David and Richard Stanley, carried on a legacy and family vision of citizens engaging with and seeking to address important global challenges.

Stanley Family, clockwise from top: C. Maxwell Stanley, David Stanley, Richard Stanley, Elizabeth Stanley, Jane (Stanley) Stephenson. Stanley Foundation library, 420 E. Third St, Muscatine, Iowa, December 5, 1983.

In her decades of leadership, Jane served as director, member, committee and strategic planning member, and co-host to numerous convenings, passionately advocating for family involvement as educated and engaged global citizens, using privilege wisely and well.

Jane used her gravitas, historical knowledge, intelligence, independent thinking, humor, and love of the arts to respect, engage, and inform the many people with whom she crossed paths through the Stanley Center.

A theater arts scholar and clothing design entrepreneur, Jane cofounded and was Executive Director of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in New York City. She facilitated an innovative and ongoing arrangement with the Stanley Center to bring an ever-changing collection of mission-inspired work from artists around the world to Muscatine.

Jane was mother to Donna, Guy, and Laura Buckles and grandmother to Isa and Nur Abbassy-Buckles. We express our heartfelt sympathy to Jane’s family.

We will remember and honor Jane by carrying forward the spirit she brought to the work of the Stanley Center.