Mary-Jane Brown Karpoe, known to her friends as “Jane,” died peacefully in her sleep on Friday 6/17/22 at the age of 94.
Jane was the daughter of Helen Josephine Mason Brown and Reginald Stanton Brown. She was born in 1928 in the Mason family home in Raymond, Maine. She was the grand-daughter of Edward M. Mason and Mabel Clara Dingley Mason. Jane is survived by her two daughters, Kelly and Miranda “Randi” Karpoe, and by one grandson, Miranda’s son, Jack Karpoe.
In 1945, Jane graduated with High Honors from Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg, Maine, and went on to graduate as a Math major from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
As head-strong as ever until the day she died, Jane insisted on being self-reliant. Up until the last two years of her life, Jane happily lived on her own in the Brown family homestead in Raymond, Maine, where she and her mother before her had been born and raised.
When Jane wanted to visit her daughter Miranda in Virginia, she packed her own car and drove it south, well into her 80s. When Jane came for a visit, no one but Jane knew when she would arrive or for how long she would stay, but that was ok.
For 35 years, Jane was married to John “Jack” Karpoe, who died in 1992. Jane and Jack were both educators who loved boarding school life. Jane first taught at the Foxhollow School in Lenox MA. After she married Jack, they lived at the Trinity Pawling School in Pawling NY, where Jack taught and coached for about 27 years, and at the Canterbury School in New Milford CT for about 13 years, before retiring to Maine. During those 40 years, Jane substitute-taught and later full-time taught 7th grade Math at Pawling Central School in Pawling NY.
Jane and Jack were co-owners of the recreational tutoring camp, Long Lake Lodge, on Long Lake in North Bridgton, Maine, and embraced every summer they had together with their children at their cabin on Moose Pond.
Jane loved talking about baseball. Baseball became as much a part of Jane’s life as her family and her teaching career. Awhile back, when Kelly brought Jane to Fenway Park to watch a game, Jane hadn’t been inside the baseball park in more than 50 years. “Watching the games on television is good enough. That hasn’t changed,” said Jane, “but walking off that ramp and seeing that field for the first time again was like the curtain going up on Broadway.”
After a Red Sox game, walking with the wave of Fenway fans exiting the ball park that night, Kelly kept checking on her mom as they walked the four blocks to the car. Jane was marching, and Kelly asked, ”Mom, want to stop and catch your breath?” Energized, Jane’s only reply back was, “I could live right here.”
