Growing up the oldest of five children, Jane L. Wanless was quick to tend to the needs of her younger siblings.
“She looked after me a lot when I was a child,” recalled her younger sister, Adele Barg. “She was like a second mother to me.”
Years later, after pursuing a career in nursing and having children of her own, the mother of four continued in her role as caretaker.
“Nothing ever threw her,” said her daughter, Christina. “She’d get more scattered just getting ready for a party.”
Mrs. Wanless, 89, of Glen Ellyn, a former Army nurse and retired emergency room nurse at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, died Tuesday, May 30, in her home, of heart failure.
Mrs. Wanless was born in Manila, Philippines, the daughter of the late Hugh Bradshaw, a Standard Oil Co. executive who was assigned there for five years. The family then returned to their home in Glen Ellyn, where in 1934 Mrs. Wanless graduated from Glenbard High School. She received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from St. Luke’s Hospital in Chicago.
“She paid her own way through nursing school, working at a local ice cream parlor,” said her sister. “I remember her showing me an envelope filled with money that she used to pay her tuition.”
Against the wishes of her father, Mrs. Wanless joined the Army in 1942 in World War II. She was assigned to an evacuation hospital in Algeria, where she cared for wounded American soldiers undergoing long-term recoveries.
“She said the hardest thing about caring for the soldiers was that sometimes they’d fix them up only to see them sent right back to the front lines,” said her daughter.
While in the service, Mrs. Wanless met her husband, Eric, a native of Scotland and former member of the Royal Air Force. The couple wed in Italy in 1944, and after receiving their military discharges, lived for a while in Scotland. They were married for 30 years. He died in 1975.
“Theirs was a romantic story, how they met and began their lives together,” said her daughter.
Mrs. Wanless worked for several years at the Glen Ellyn Clinic before becoming an emergency nurse at Central DuPage Hospital in the early 1970s. She retired from nursing in 1988 and moved to Ocala, Fla., where she lived for the next 10 years.
“She was a very competent nurse with a great bedside manner,” said her daughter. “Something about the way she treated people just drew them to her.”
Mrs. Wanless wasa life member of St. Andrew’s Society and St. Luke’s Nurses Alumni.
Mrs. Wanless is also survived by three sons, Peter, William and Alexander; another sister, Suzanne Weishar; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Visitation will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday in Leonard Memorial Home, 565 Duane St., Glen Ellyn. A memorial service will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday in First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn, Anthony and Main Streets.
