Fowlerville News and Views Online

Jane (King) Billinger

    Jane (King) Bollinger passed away peacefully on Tuesday, August 23, 2016 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Jane was born in 1924 in rural Livingston County, Michigan, to Hazel (Nicholas) and Ira N. King. She graduated from Stockbridge High School in 1941. Jane and Alger Bollinger were married at the Plainfield United Methodist Church in December 1942. They were married for over 65 years, until Alger passed away in early 2008.
     Jane and Alger raised their three children on the small Bollinger family dairy farm near Plainfield. As parents, they each worked double shifts to supplement the precarious farming income. Al worked days on the farm and nights as a skilled die-maker in Howell. Jane worked at home, caring over the years for twenty-three beloved foster children. Jane was a born musician; many neighbors and friends have appreciated her expressive soprano solos sung at weddings, funerals, and other occasions.
     After their children left home, Jane and Alger sold the farm and moved to the Bollinger homestead at 405 Main Street in Gregory. Jane shared with Alger the love of music, gardening, and Siamese cats. They enjoyed playing duets, Jane on the piano and Al on the saxophone. They worked on projects to benefit the Plainfield Church. Jane also worked for ten years at Book Crafters Publishing in Chelsea. Jane and Alger traveled in the U.S. and toured Europe and Mexico. As a widow, and while she was able, Jane lived in the little saltbox house she and Alger had built to downsize in 1984. Jane then went to live with a daughter and son-in-law in Wisconsin.
    Jane was a natural writer, who chronicled local life, both past and present, including genealogies of the King and Bollinger families. Her popular newspaper column, “The View From My Window,” evoked the rhythms of nature, farm, and village.
    Jane was preceded in death by her parents; four siblings: Trula Jackson, Emmett King, Donna Nichoson, and Phyllis Osborne; her husband: Alger Bollinger; and her son, Carl Frederic ‘Ric’ Bollinger.
    She is survived by two daughters: Patricia Gayle (Raymond) Cole of Fowlerville, Michigan, and Joel Ruth (Randall) Pouwels of Green Bay, Wisconsin; sister-in-law: Patricia Fitzgerald of Ann Arbor; grandsons: Michael (Jill) Cole of Cedar Springs, Michigan, and Craig (Jennifer) Cole of Akron, Ohio; granddaughter: Elanor ‘Ellie’ Phillips of Bentonville, Arkansas; great-granddaughters: Caitlin Cole and Chelsea (Cody) McKay, all of Muskegon; numerous nieces and nephews; and Skeeter, her last Siamese cat.
    A Funeral Service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Monday, August 29, 2016, at the Plainfield United Methodist Church, with Rev. Dave Freeland officiating. Burial will follow at Plainfield Cemetery. The family will receive friends at the Caskey-Mitchell Funeral Home, Stockbridge, on Sunday from 6-8 p.m. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to Jane’s favored children’s charity, Smile Train (www.SmileTrain.org, or P.O. Box 96231, Washington, DC 20090), or to the Plainfield United Methodist Church.