Jane Potter Sencer

Jane Potter Blood Sencer died peacefully on Thursday, May 2, 2019, in the company of her family. She was born in Winchester, Massachusetts in 1923, and during the Great Depression she spent part of her childhood in Boston and part in Western New York State. She graduated from Belmont High School in Belmont, MA, then attended Radcliffe College and graduated with a degree in biochemistry in 1945. At the conclusion of WWII, she moved to Ann Arbor and worked at the University of Michigan Hospital where she met her husband, David Sencer. They spent much of the next 60 years together in Atlanta.

Though she was a brilliant woman who came of age at a time when society did not encourage women to pursue professional or scientific careers, she retained her curiosity and incisive intelligence throughout her life. She was a believer in the importance of education, and earned a Masters in Library Sciences from Emory University. She then helped to create the medical library at Northside Hospital.

Throughout her life she was knowledgeable and opinionated about politics and the future of our society. Having lived 95 years, she experienced more than a third of our country’s history. Defying her father, she cast her first vote at age 21 for Franklin Roosevelt. Having been born only three years after women were granted the right, she was proud to cast her last vote at age 93 for a woman candidate for president, Hillary Clinton.

Above all, she loved and was devoted to her family, which in addition to her husband included two brothers, many nieces and nephews, her three children, Susan (David Mura), Ann (Steve Cullen) and Steve (Conner Ball), and their children, Samantha Sencer-Mura, Nikko Sencer-Mura, Rachel Jane Sencer Gundaker, Tomo Sencer-Mura, Isaac Sencer and Jacob Sencer, and stepgrandaughter Gina Cullen. She took satisfaction in tracking down facts about her ancestors, but most of all enjoyed the present. Annual family gatherings at the seashore were her favorite times, whether on Cape Ann in her native Massachusetts, or at Fripp Island in South Carolina.

A celebration of her life will occur at 11 am on June 8, at the Miller Ward Alumni House at Emory University, luncheon to follow. In lieu of flowers, the family invites you to contribute to the David J. Sencer Scholarship Fund at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health. A. S. Turner and Sons Funeral Home and Crematory.