By; Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Jane Kromer Kean, 94, a longtime District resident who worked as the financial and administrative officer for the Episcopal
Center for Children, died July 18 of pneumonia at her home in Bethesda. Mrs. Kean, whose father was an Army officer, was
born at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., but returned to Washington as a child. After graduating from Western High School, she attended
the University of Arizona, where she was on the tennis and swimming teams and studied set design.
Her father, Gen. Leon B. Kromer, by then chief of cavalry at Fort Myer, needed a hostess because her mother was away caring
for a sick child. So she dropped out of school and came home to stand in for her mother at numerous Fort Myer social events.
She was a noted horsewoman in the 1930s.
After her marriage in 1939 to Charles Duell Kean, an Episcopal priest, she lived in New York, Springfield, Mass., and Kirkwood,
Mo. She moved to Washington in 1954, when the Rev. Kean became rector of the Church of the Epiphany. In 1963, he had a
heart attack and died in the church's parking lot. Mrs. Kean continued as a member of Epiphany until her death.
She also continued her involvement with the Episcopal Center for Children, a five-day residential program for emotionally
disturbed children. She worked at the center from 1958 until her retirement in 1982 and then served as a volunteer.
More recently, she sorted toiletries that are distributed to the homeless on behalf of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations.
Survivors include three children, Jane Annesley 'Anne' Kean Schmidt of Bethesda, William Lybrand Kean of Merritt Island, Fla.,
and Mary Louise Kean of Irvine, Calif.; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.