May 8, 2015
Jane and Philip Wilson have lived on Ames Avenue in Leonia for 35 years. She’s a retired nurse, and he recently retired as CEO of West Bergen Mental Health in Ridgewood. They have two grown sons, Chris and Andrew, both graduates of Leonia High School, and four grandchildren. Philip is a founding member and the incoming president of Rotary Club of The Palisades. Jane is the chairwoman of the Leonia Shade Tree Commission, and organizer of the annual Arbor/Earth Leonia Day event, which is on May 17 in Wood Park.
Q: Where are you from?
Jane: I grew up with my two sisters in the west of England, in the small village of Norton St. Philip, near Bath. It was beautiful. The movie “Tom Jones” was filmed there.
Philip: I was born in Gary and raised in Hobart, Indiana, south of the steel mills. Jane and I had an evangelical upbringing in common. Her father was a Plymouth Brother; my family was Baptist.
Q: What was your childhood like?
Jane: My father was a country doctor who made house calls all over the countryside. My mother stayed home and organized all of us.
Philip: The defining event in my childhood was being diagnosed with polio when I was eight. In the summer of 1952, during the high point of the polio epidemic in the U.S., my older brother was exposed at a church sleep-away camp. He developed symptoms while we were on a family fishing trip in Minnesota, and died in the hospital a few days later. Two weeks later I developed symptoms. I spent the summer of 1952 in an Iron Lung. I returned to school 1 1/2 years later. Polio causes nerve damage and I lost the use of both arms. Fortunately I can use my right hand.
Q: What did you aspire to be?
Philip: In high school I loved history and constitutional studies, and wanted to be a lawyer. But after graduating from Wheaton College in Illinois, a religious school, (Billy Graham’s daughter was in my class), I considered missionary work or joining the Peace Corps.
Jane: At 16, I wanted to be a cartographer, but didn’t qualify for a place at the university. Nursing was my backup plan. From 1963-66, I attended Guys Hospital Nursing School in London, near London Bridge. London was exciting in the 60s. I attended a Beatles concert — third row seats!
Q: How did you meet?
Jane: We met in Kenya in 1967, where I was a nurse with VSO–Voluntary Services Overseas–assigned to the 160-bed Tumutumu Hospital in Kenya. It was a missionary compound with a school, hospital and housing.
Philip: I was in the Peace Corps, teaching at a high school near the base of Mt. Kenya. Weekends, even though I was engaged to a girl back home, I took the ‘bus’ (a pickup truck with benches) into town to socialize with the expatriate nurses and teachers at Jane’s hospital. They were all wonderful young adults.
Q: What brought you both to Kenya?
Philip: I was very influenced by medical missionaries I had met in my childhood. Their slideshows brought the outside world to me. I had read a lot about Kenya, and chose it for my Peace Corps service.
Jane: After growing up in such a small village, I desired to see the world. Whenever I had vacation, I travelled with fellow nurses to Morocco, Greece and Norway. My long-term plan was two years in Kenya, followed by a move to New Zealand. But that changed after we began dating, toward the end of my two-year contract. We married three months later.
Q: What was your wedding like?
Philip: Our wedding was very festive, attended by the local villagers and volunteers that we had worked with for the previous two years.
Jane: My wedding dress was made by the local tailor with fabric bought from the Indian market, sewed from a Simplicity pattern. My parents came. My mother brought a huge fruit cake she had baked in England. The airline kindly gave the cake its own seat!
Q: Did you have a chance to explore other areas of Africa?
Philip: While we were dating we traveled to other parts of Kenya, Tanzania and went to Zanzibar. Our honeymoon began with a three-day steamboat trip on Lake Victoria with Jane’s parents. Since the trip was booked before we were engaged, Jane shared a room with five African women, and I shared mine with five Indian men. Jane’s parents were good enough to lend us their private cabin a few times.
Jane: When our contracts were up, the two of us traveled through Uganda. It was the best time to travel there, before the dictatorship of Idi Amin. Animals everywhere, gorgeous scenery. We then packed up all our things and spent a month in England, then spent a month with Philip’s family in Indiana.
Q: What was your plan for the U.S.?
Philip: I wanted to live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where I’d done my Peace Corps training at Columbia’s Teachers College.
Jane: We came to NYC with nothing — no plan, no money, no furniture. We saw an ad for a $125/month rent-controlled apartment in an elevator building on W. 92nd and Broadway. Our first night, we slept on a rug. Our super found a table for us. We stayed for 11 years.
Q: What kind of work did you do in the city?
Jane: There was a nursing shortage in the U.S. at the time, so I received emergency certification, and easily found a job at Columbia Presbyterian. After our first son was born, I worked nights at St. Luke’s Hospital. Our neighbor, a medical student, came over if Philip needed help with our son.
Philip: I had heard of social work, but really didn’t know what it was. In Manhattan, I sought work at a social service agency, where I was offered a work/study program with a partial scholarship to study social work at Fordham. I was first placed at a childcare agency, which provided foster care. My second placement was at Brooklyn Catholic Charities in the mental health division. It clicked with me, and I studied psychoanalysis for five years. I’ve had my own practice as a social worker therapist for 40 years.
Q: Why did you move to Leonia?
Philip: My boss at Brooklyn Catholic Charities was Carlo DeRege, who lived in Leonia. He recommended Leonia to us and to several other Leonians who worked with him, including the Hlavaceks, the Tynans and Alan McLean.
Jane: I just wanted to sit under a tree and have a garden. I looked at quite a few houses in the area and we bought the cheapest fixer-upper on the market. It was 1980 and our mortgage interest rate was 12.5 percent, considered quite good at that time. We’ve been here 35 years!
Q: What work did you do in New Jersey?
Jane: I commuted into the city for 22 years working as a research nurse. When that position ended, I became a school nurse with Bergen County Special Services, working with autistic children.
Philip: In 1980 West Bergen Mental Health in Ridgewood offered me a position as CEO. I’ve just retired after working there for 35 years. I have always had a practice out of my home office.
Q: Do you have a shared passion?
Philip: Travel. We took our sons on lots of car trips — tent camping, hiking, and canoeing in the wilderness. We also traveled to both Indiana and England to see our families.
Jane: In the past decade, we’ve done quite a bit of international travel. Philip’s college roommate leads group tours, so we began traveling with him–to Egypt, the Greek Isles, India, Barcelona, Cuba, Russia, Vietnam and South Africa. We just returned from a fabulous 15-day cruise to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Dubai.
Q: What are your hobbies?
Jane: I love gardening, and am a member of the Englewood Garden Club. I’m also a big reader. I highly recommend the most recent book I read: “All the Light We Cannot See,” by Anthony Doerr.
Philip: I too love to read. I recommend “Infidel,” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to everyone I meet.
Q: What do you most enjoy about Leonia?
Philip: Because it’s relatively small and warm, you can meet a tremendous number of people.
Jane: Being a part of a small community. I meet lots of people via the Shade Tree Commission. One lady invited me in to advise on her window treatments even though I’d come to evaluate a tree!
Q: What activities are you involved with in Leonia?
Philip: We are both very involved with the Presbyterian Church community. I’m also been a member of Rotary for 30 years. Rotary has done tremendous work eradicating polio worldwide. When we travel, I try to visit local Rotary Clubs. I’m also a member of the County’s Improvement Authority board.
Jane: I’m a member of PEO Chapter G, a philanthropic organization that raises money for the education of women. As chair of the Leonia Shade Tree Commission, one of my responsibilities is organizing Arbor/Earth Leonia Day. This year marks the 20th anniversary. I hope to see everyone there on May 17.
Leonia Lives 