A Hurricane of a Life: Flagler Bids Farewell to Firebrand Activist Jane Gentile-Youd

Friends, family and fellow community activists and political candidates, as Jane Gentile-Youd had been for many of her 24 years in Flagler County and as many years in South Florida, gathered Friday afternoon at the Palm Coast Community Center to remember Jane for the hurricane of a life she lived on her own terms, “fearlessly, compassionately, and always with purpose,” in the words of Temple Beth Shalom Rabbi Karen Tashman, who led the service.

They celebrated her for the fire of her red hair, of her convictions and of her verve, and also for the occasional devastation and bruised reputations she left in her wake as her impulsiveness–one of her greater strengths and weaknesses–took no prisoners.

“This is someone who leaves behind not only cherished memories but a legacy that will continue in communities that she shaped, the people that she inspired and the love she shared with Mark,” Tashman said, referring to Jane’s husband of 35 years.

Speaking to the audience of a couple of dozen, Mark Gentile-Youd remembered how he was at a dance club one night in Miami when he “noticed a stunning woman wearing a one piece jumpsuit with unforgettable red hair. He asked her to dance. She said yes. He was 26. He asked her how old she was. She told him: “None of your business.” Soon they were watching the first of innumerable space shuttle launches they watched together, and soon after that, they married at the Kennedy Space Center. There were concerts–Elton John, Diana Ross, the Eagles–dancing, cooking and traveling, when Jane wasn’t the activist in her community.

“Was Jane perfect? No,” Gentile-Youd said. “But she was the smartest person I ever knew, she was always thinking two steps ahead of others. I remember going from hero to zero in less than one second. Sometimes it took until the next day until I was a hero again.”

So many people weathered the same treatment, and a handful–just a handful–were never heroes in her eyes. County Commission Chair Leann Pennington, for example, had had the temerity of running against Jane in Jane’s last attempt to win a seat on the commission in 2022, but there was no bad blood between them. Commissioner Andy Dance, who had withstood his share of Jane’s swagger at the commission meetings she hardly ever missed, was also at the memorial.

So was Tax Collector Shelly Edmonson, who shared this story with a reporter after the memorial: “When I met Jane, I was working the front counter, and she came in and she was cussing up a storm. I didn’t know who she was. But I said, Ma’am, you can’t talk like that in here. You’re going to have to go. And I thought maybe I’d get fired. She immediately stopped cussing. She became my best friend. From that day, she complimented my jewelry. We’ve been friends ever since, and every time I saw her, she told me she loved me and hugged me and always complimented my heels–and Suzanne.” Meaning Suzanne Johnston, Edmonson’s predecessor as tax collector. “She thought Suzanne was something special.”

When Jane brook her hip in three places last fall, she wrote Edmonson to let her know she had her tax payment. She said she’d go to the tax office as soon as she was released. Edmonson told her shoe didn’t have to, the payments could be made online. “She wrote me and told me I was the best tax collector ever and that we had the best website,” the tax collector said. “I just miss her. She was she was a fireball, but she was a friend to our office. That’s all I can say.”

Jane Gentile-Youd died at 82 on Jan. 15, or in the Hebrew calendar, on 26 Tevet 5786.

Jane had always been connected to her Jewish heritage, but even then, on her own terms: she asked to be cremated.

A lifetime’s pictures and framed mementos that might’ve filled mantels and bookshelves at her home were arranged in an L-shaped display at the Community Center, close to chronological, starting with a portrait of Jane as a baby, Jane a little older, Jane as an adult but never quite aging. Jane didn’t really seem to age so much as become more frail if no less fierce for wear no matter what betrayals her body threw at her.

There she was, Jane sitting atop a piano, provocatively flashing her legs and a little more, Jane in front of a huge campaign sign, Jane with her dogs, so many scenes of Jane with Mark, Jane celebrating in a picture on the front page of the New York Daily News the Mets’ win over the A’s in the fifth game of the 1973 World Series, and in the middle of it all, in front of a bunch of red roses that looked dim in comparison, a flaming red urn.

Along the L one might’ve noticed two or three dozen clippings of budding green plants in small pots, there for anyone to take a clip. It was the work of Darlene Shelley, who shares Jane’s love of plants and used to visit her and spend time talking amid her plants. Jane had gifted her one, and from it Shelley planted and distributed over 100 clips as a symbol of Jane’s generosity, “ever nurturing, ever multiplying in kindness and care,” Shelley said.

“Jane told me when we first met that I need to run for council, either the city or the commission,” Shelley recalled, addressing the audience, “and I said, Jane, that’s the last thing I want to do. I’m retired. My mom, my grandchildren are here, I have so many things on my plate. But in Jane’s honor, in her memory, and all the things that she taught me, I am now running for city council.”

Shelley called Jane “transformative” and nothing short of a second mother for her, as Jane almost shared Shelley’s mother’s birthday.

“Jane was part of the fabric of our club,” Jay Sherr, president of Flagler Tiger Bay Club, told the audience. “She loved coming to our monthly meetings, and at our recent meeting we had a moment of silence, and I commented at that meeting that Jane was always the first person to raise her hand during our Q&A. She was bright, spirited, she spoke her mind. There’s been a lot of wonderful things said about her, and very descriptive things about Jane. But as I was listening and looking at these incredible pictures and listening to each of your stories, those you’ve shared, it’s a reminder to me that we are multi-dimensional. Every single person has a story. And everyone’s story matters.”

Tashman described the different steps of the service to the mostly non-Jewish audience–the act of keriah, a “physical show of anguish, of sadness, of distress,” but with a ribbon to symbolize the ripped garment, the recitation of Kaddish, the meaning of one’s name. The rabbi summarized Jane’s life from her birth at Beth-Israel Hospital in Manhattan to Palm Coast and Plantation Bay.

The rabbi also explained that, while it is not Jewish custom to cremate someone, it is also not against Jewish law. “As we look at this table up here we see, appropriately so, an urn that is bright red.” Tashman said. “Our belief is that our soul in Hebrew, called a neshamah (נפש), when we pass away, leaves our body. Our soul goes up to be with God. So what is left is a shell, and we are taught that we return our body to the earth through the words, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It is not Mark’s intention to keep her in this urn. She will be returned to the earth in the places that were meaningful to her.”

“Rest in peace Jane, and thank you for giving Flagler County one hell of a fight for all of us,” Joy Cook, one of her closest friends, said.