Mom's Obituary - A look into her wonderful, adventurous, & love filled life.
Wed 30 Oct, 2024
Retired Dutton ranchwife Jane Crystal (Clemenson) DeBruycker, 87, a tireless advocate for the elderly and children, died of natural causes on May 29, 2024, at Benefis in Great Falls.
Her Funeral Service will be June 9 at 2 p.m. at the Bethany Lutheran Church with a fellowship gathering following at the American Legion Hall. Burial will be in the Dutton Cemetery. Croxford Funeral Home & Crematory of Great Falls is handling arrangements.
Jane was born on Oct. 24, 1936, to Carl John and Clara Florence Clemenson in Gonvick, Minnesota. She spent part of her childhood in Minnesota, where her father worked as a carpenter and ran a small farm. When she was in her early teens, she moved with her family to Dutton, enrolling at Dutton High School as a sophomore. Her father worked as a carpenter and her mother ran a restaurant, where Jane worked tables.
At a Dutton High School ball game, Jane met a young farmer, Lloyd DeBruycker, a 1950 graduate of DHS, who took at shine to her. They dated for the rest of high school and after she graduated, were married on July 2, 1954, in the Dutton Lutheran Church, starting a grand partnership that would span 67 years of marriage, seven children and the building of a nationally and internationally respected Charolais cattle operation.
The young couple lived in a small home in Dutton until they were able to purchase a 600-acre farm, the start of their ag operation. They moved into a big house on the farm in July of 1963, and began raising grain, pigs, cattle and kids. In that house, she loved looking out the windows, seeing the Rocky Mountains to the west, and the prairie to the east.
Jane and Lloyd entered the Charolais cattle industry in 1958 with their purchase of a Charolais bull that started their career-long commitment to the industry, and held their first DeBruycker Charolais bull sale in 1985. In 2003, Jane and Lloyd were inducted into the American International Charolais Association Hall of Fame in recognition of their influence on the Charolais cattle breed and their contributions to the beef cattle industry.
Jane’s whole life revolved around her family, ranching and farming, and advocacy for agriculture, the elderly and children.
Her commitment to agriculture showed through her years of work on the farm and ranch as well as her membership in the Dutton chapter of Montana W.I.F.E. and in the Teton CattleWomen. She also served as secretary of the board of the Montana Charolais Association.
One of the local veterinarians remembers responding to the ranch for calving call. There he found Jane, “nine and half months pregnant” with several small children in tow, out chasing a calving cow into the barn. She was a huge part of the Charolais operation’s beginnings and overall success. And while she was a stickler for having a clean mouth at all other times, when she was in the calving barn, her language could be just as salty as the next rancher’s. She told her children they “might get away with that language in the barn, but they were not allowed to take those words to school.”
Her children also remember learning to drive (or at least steer) around the age of 5, when they drove the pickup for Jane to feed off hay bales to cattle in the winter. One of them (who will remain nameless) drove a pickup into a reservoir while driving for her.
While she wasn’t afraid of working with cattle that outweighed her many times over, Jane was deathly afraid of mice, and her children delighted in scaring her with mice, real or imagined.
Like many farm wives, Jane cooked for a crew and every fall would serve harvest dinner in the field out of the back of her Lincoln Town Car. Lincolns were her favorite ride and she was known for having a “lead foot” in her Lincolns.
She was a 4-H organizational leader for years, not only chaperoning and ferrying 4-H members to events, but serving as a judge for exhibits during the 4-H fair and supporting 4-H youth financially by purchasing market animals during the 4-H sale.
She was a Sunday School teacher and superintendent for many years at Bethany Lutheran Church in Dutton, where she brought the other congregations in Dutton together to put on a summer vacation Bible school for children of all denominations.
Jane served as a role model for young women in the area, including her own daughters and granddaughters. She always stressed the importance of getting an education and having the skills needed for independence.
When she was in her 70s, she managed the Sunshine Trail Lodge in Dutton, making sure the retirement home was in tip-top shape and provided a safe and welcoming place for Dutton senior citizens.
She was also a past member of the Columbus Hospital Advisory Board and the Diamond Valley Homemakers and served on the Teton County Board of Health.
Jane was an active member of the Democratic Party. She served as chairwoman of the Teton County Democratic Central Committee and as a precinct committeewoman. In 1990, she ran for the Montana Legislature and won one term.
She campaigned on a commonsense, down-to-earth platform that advocated for agriculture, small towns, water rights, healthcare and services to support children. She brought passion and compassion to her job as a legislator. She also served in the 1992 special legislative session, and later on the state Workers Compensation Board under Governor Schweitzer.
In Jane’s campaign for representative, her grandchildren endorsed her in her 1994 run and urged voters to vote for “Grandma Jane.” She was thanked in 1994 by the Montana Public Service Commission for her behind-the-scenes work to support the sale of the Choteau telephone exchange from US West (which was not providing upgrades) to 3 Rivers Telephone Cooperative.
She supported many good causes throughout her life, including the establishment of the Teton County Search and Rescue Unit, March of Dimes, the American Lung Association and Special Olympics.
Jane’s love for her family was unparalleled. She raised her children, by her side through everything, with high expectations for respect, behavior, work ethic and compassion, and was lovingly known as “Grandma Jane” by many beyond her own grandchildren. Her grandchildren remember fondly having coffee dates with her as she served up a splash of coffee with mostly creamer and water.
All of her children remember what happened when they got in fights with each other: She would make them sit on the couch with their arms around each other, until they got so angry at her that they forgot what they were fighting about. She was also known to kick squabbling kids out of the car and make them walk a ways to cool off and be civil again.
Despite health issues, including two bouts of cancer, she never complained. She always kept her challenges in perspective, saying, “A lot of people have it worse; I am thankful.” Jane would regularly say to her family, “Do what you can every day to leave the world a better place for our next generation.”
She loved visiting with her children and her friends, mowing her yard on her John Deere tractor mower (usually with several grandkids on board) and supporting her hometown of Dutton. She also loved cheese fries, maple ice cream and salted nut rolls (though she never seemed to gain a pound).
She grieved when Lloyd died in 2021, but carried on, continuing to live independently at home, to attend children and grandchildren’s events and to celebrate new great-grandchildren. (She had two on the way at the time of her death).
She was so very happy to have been able to attend the graduation on May 26 of three grandchildren, Dillon Harrell, Ainsley DeBruycker and Zoey Tobar.
The legacy she leaves behind is vested in the words and actions of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with whom she shared a personal and warm relationship. She raised them to be community-minded, just as she and Lloyd were, and to take care of the land, to love their families unconditionally, to work hard and to be generous with their time and talent. Jane’s spirit of kindness and dedication will continue to inspire all who knew her.
Jane is survived by her children, Tammy (Chris) Wend of Sparwood, British Columbia, Mark (Belva) DeBruycker of Bynum, Cathy (Joe) Campbell of Choteau, Jacque Jacobsen of Fairfield, Kelly (Bruce) Martin of Conrad, Brett (Kay) DeBruycker of Dutton and Jody Dahl of Roundup; 26 grandchildren; and 27 great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by an infant son, Stephen Lloyd DeBruycker; her grandson, Jeffrey Wend; and her siblings, Clary, Milan, Olive, Lavern and Lyle.