Jane Frances Fishman

“A stroke is a sneaky way of getting your mind off cancer,” said beloved Savannah humorist and columnist, Jane Fishman.

Jane was gardening in the lane behind her Parkside home, mid-July, when she quietly laid down on the ground. “It felt good,” she said. An ambulance arrived and the medic asked Jane all the cognitive questions: “Who is the President? What day is it? What’s the date?”

Jane responded perfectly and then refused to go to the hospital. The medic said, “If you don’t need to go to the hospital, why don’t you get up? You’re layin’ in the dirt. That’s not normal!”

Jane, a renegade gardener, replied, “I’m not normal and I love dirt!”

Since she arrived at the hospital before her family she was given the Jane Doe name of Singapore Burlington for the next 72 hours. While in the hospital, Jane inscribed books for her nurses with phrases such as, “To Dalton, may you never have to sit on a bedpan,” her Jewish humor always front and center.

Jane Frances Fishman, 78, died peacefully in her home on Oct. 16, 2022.

Jane Fishman had a great life in Savannah. She got to grow garlic, collard greens and banana trees, host a city-wide semi-annual plant swap in her urban folk garden full of pass-a-long plants and funky recycled sculptures. She wrote more than 3,000 newspaper columns for the Savannah Morning News about any character she could find. (And got paid for it.) If she couldn’t find an interview for a story, she would interview herself, revealing universal truths about her aging mother or her own private adventures, including keying a city vehicle in the middle of the night, (unfortunately a misdemeanor in the U.S. is a felony in Canada, making it difficult to cross the border, but also making another story); buying drugs on the street for a story, and riding an elephant into the city with the traveling circus.

A fan once wrote to the opinion section:

“Jane wrote the stories which brought us together … stories of community and in the writing helped create it. Profiles of people like caregiver/advocate Addie Mae Reaves; musician/educator Ed Fletcher (aka Duke Bootee); professor/poet David Starnes; farmer/community builder Robert Johnson; artist/photographer Jack Leigh; artist/baker Joan Cobitz; environmentalist/naturalist Jim Bitler; historic preservationist/creative activist Laura Devendorf; Savannah historian W.W. Law; and her dear friend, conservationist/ art supporter Sandy West of Ossabaw Island fame. (Jane was a part of Sandy’s Army to keep Ossabaw Island set aside for art, science and education.) Jane wrote of bar mitzvahs, baptisms, church dinners and seder meals with a unique understanding of how those rituals and ceremonies mold and shape our community life. She wrote of Muslims, Christians, Jews and Hindus, of race, religion and class in a style and manner that encouraged conversation and strived to diminish rather than exaggerate differences. Street people and society folk know Jane Fishman. Hookers and clergypersons, restaurateurs, and politicians, doctors and herbalists, artists and raconteurs, gay folk and straight folk, coffee shop owners and coffee shop patrons, we all know Jane Fishman. We’ve read her columns with anticipation and enthusiasm.”

Jane published six books. Her latest, I'd Rather Be Seen Than Viewed, a collection of her columns, was preceded by So What’s the Hurry? Tales From the Train; I Grew it My Way, How Not to Garden; The Dirt on Jane; The Woman Who Saved an Island, the Story of Sandy West and Ossabaw Island and Everyone’s Gotta Be Somewhere.

Jane listened in on conversations with her grandchildren during morning nature walks as they debated which is better, living in the country or the city (“I like both habitats,” says young Benny).

She was a former Chicago teacher, speechwriter, laundromat owner and co-owner of the Pita Hut in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. She cooked in a French restaurant in Key West, Florida (La-te-da) and won a bunch of journalism awards in Savannah for both humorous and serious columns. When she lived in Chicago and worked at WTTW public television, she met Fran of “Kukla, Fran and Ollie,” and watched Abbie Hoffman rant at the trial of the Chicago 7.

Jane grew up in Detroit (Huntington Woods, really), where she never owned a car. She was the sports editor of her high school newspaper, The Acorn, at Royal Oak Dondero.

She is predeceased by her parents Rose Modell Fishman and Emmanuel (Manny) Fishman and sister Sue Ann Fishman Gerard.

Jane’s fan club includes her partner in crime, Carmela Aliffi; daughter Jenna Alstad , son-in-law, Travis Alstad and grandchildren, Baker, Benny and Liza Jane. Wonderful nephews and nieces, fabulous cousins from Michigan, California, Minneapolis, Colorado, and as far away Israel; friends like family (too many to mention) from everywhere she’s ever been; fellow gardeners; artists; environmentalists; political resisters; plant swappers; book clubbers; road warriors and troublemakers; and of course, her many loyal readers. Jane was working on her next book to be titled,
I Ain’t Dead Yet.

Thanks to Jenna Alstad, Betsy Cain and Betsy Giblin for loving support through this journey. Thanks also to Bettina, Yolanda and Pancita for excellent, loving care. A private service will be held in November.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations in her name to the Ossabaw Island Foundation, to help fund artists visiting the island, the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home, or Forsyth Farmers' Market.