Jane Magrino Tolman, a beloved daughter, sister, wife, veteran journalist and loyal friend who never forgot a birthday, died Sunday, Feb. 22, at the age of 60.
Born in New Jersey in October 1965, Jane was the third of four Magrino sisters. She grew up first in West Orange, then in Delaware, where she graduated from Newark High School.
But it was in Orient, where her family owned a home on Village Lane for decades beginning in the 1960s, that became the place she returned to throughout her life. The family had many rides between their New Jersey home to Orient with all four Magrino daughters somehow fitting together in the back seat of a Buick station wagon. Although she only attended kindergarten in Orient, the family spent many weekends and every summer and school vacation in Orient throughout her childhood and beyond, and it was truly a place she considered home. And long after they sold their house — each time “the Magrino girls” went down Village Lane they would tell stories to one another of the house, the neighbors at the time and the freedom of small town life in the 1960s, 70s and 80s in Orient with local friends who remain close to this day.
“Jane was always fun,” her younger sister Allyn Magrino said. “She was the fun aunt for my kids, and she never lost the playfulness that so many of us do as we get older — she loved birthdays, and would approach her own the way a five-year-old does: filled with excitement. She’d push every button in an elevator, and encourage people to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day. But along with that playfulness, Jane was incredibly soulful, caring and deeply intelligent. Jane’s interactions with people were meaningful and sincere, and she was not someone who reveled in small talk but preferred meatier conversations.”
Her sister Sarah Magrino Miller added that “in addition to being a great sister, Jane was an amazing aunt and godmother to her nephews and niece, who were so lucky to have her. As playful and fun as Aunt Jane always was, she took her role as godmother very seriously, always keeping things spiritual as well as spirited. My sons Stetson and Noah loved their many unforgettable summer visits with Aunt Jane at her ‘Camp Tolman’ Slingerlands house.”
To her friends, Jane was the kind of person who could set a plan in motion, persuade everyone to come along and turn an ordinary evening into the sort of story people retold for years.
“Jane would say, ‘Let’s do this,’ and you’d be like, ‘OK — it’s going to be a good time,’” recalled Tina Contento, who met Jane after moving to Orient as a teenager. “Even if you had other plans, she had a way of convincing you. I always said yes, and then was always glad I did.”
Again and again, those who knew her well described her as funny, magnetic, mischievous and deeply thoughtful, someone who made people feel seen and remembered in small but lasting ways.
Longtime Orient resident Dave Bull recalled one ritual that never lapsed.
“One thing she always did for me, without fail, since the 80s, is she would call me up on my birthday and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. She just never forgot.”
Jo-Ann Faulk, whose grandfather Stash Soito’s house stood next door to the Magrino’s home in Orient, remembered that same instinct for kindness. Even when Jane missed a celebration, Faulk said, she found a way to honor it.
“She was always so kind,” Faulk said. “Just recently, I celebrated a big birthday, and she couldn’t make it to my party, but she came down the next day to the beach to give me a very thoughtful gift.”
Cy Lukeman, another childhood friend who lived across the street in Orient and came over to the Magrino’s every day for breakfast when they were growing up, recalled the origin of Jane’s devotion to birthdays. He said she once slept through one of his childhood birthday parties, and she never forgave herself. From then on, she vowed never to miss another birthday.
Her friends and family said the qualities that defined her were shaped during free-range North Fork summers in the 1970s and 80s: long days on bikes, playing with her sisters at the beach at the end of Young’s Road in Orient or jumping off the dock into the bay at the Orient Yacht Club, playing kickball and flashlight tag, going crabbing in the Orient “crick,” swimming lessons at Truman’s Beach, lemonade stands in the front yard of the Village Lane home and many other joyful memories.
“It was a really beautiful childhood,” Allyn recalled. “I was the closest in age to Jane and we pretty much did everything together over our Orient summers. I will always cherish the freedom and fun of this time together.”
Their mother, Mary Cross, would ring the dinner bell at the end of the day, and the children would come flying home, dusty and sunburned, full of stories. Jane was “introspective” even then, Allyn said, and thoughtful and observant, but she could also make everyone laugh.
She carried that same spirit into adulthood. Lukeman remembered Jane as “a great unknown” in the best way: someone you knew deeply, yet who still managed to surprise you time and again.
Jane was a writer throughout her life. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Smith College, majoring in history, specifically early modern Europe. She later earned a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School, where she spent three months in Washington, D.C., filing stories as a political correspondent for The Great Falls Tribune.
In the spring of 1996, Jane married advertising executive Mason Tolman Jr., in a ceremony in Manhattan. The couple spent five years in Key West, Fla., before returning in 2001 to Mason’s hometown of Slingerlands, N.Y., where they moved into a house built in the late 1890s by his great-grandfather. After her husband’s death in 2011, Jane remained in Slingerlands, near Albany and another favorite spot of hers, the Saratoga Race Course, which she often visited with her sister Susan in the summer for horse races.
“I really looked forward to our annual ‘Saratoga meet,'” Susan recalled, “where we always dressed up in our hats. While I had spent four years there at Skidmore [College], she had learned an incredible amount about the horses and how to win at the races.”
Her career moved between newsroom reporting and financial writing. She reported for The Southampton Press in the early to mid-1990s, then became a financial writer for Dow Jones News Services. Later, she freelanced, with bylines in The Associated Press, The New York Post and the Key West Citizen, and also worked in finance, including a period at Merrill Lynch. In later years, she wrote and edited extensively online, including long stretches producing client work through ContentWriters.com and Textbroker. She described herself as a “grammar fanatic” and a “detail-oriented” editor who wasn’t afraid of constructive criticism.
But to the people who loved her, her résumé told only part of the story. Bull remembered her elaborate, hand-crafted Cat in the Hat costume, which he said was months in the making, and the way she could be hilariously competitive about a good party. She adored Halloween — it was sort of an extension of her birthday in October and there was always a great costume. He remembered how she used to teach him dance moves at the old Cinnamon Tree in Greenport.
In her later years, Jane’s big-hearted energy increasingly flowed toward animals. She deeply loved dogs, and caring for them became central to her life. Friends and family said that her affection for pets was boundless, and that in her final chapter she built her days around them, especially her dog Scooby, a pit bull mix.
Jane is survived by her mother, Mary Cross (who commented upon her daughter’s death that “Jane was so truly precious to me”), her sisters Sarah Magrino Miller, Susan Magrino Dunning and Allyn Cross Magrino; nephews Stetson Miller, Noah Miller and Maximilian Holmberg; niece Annika Holmberg; great-nephew Henry Miller; brother-in-law James D. Dunning Jr., and a wide circle of friends on the North Fork and beyond — people who can still hear her voice on the phone, singing “Happy Birthday.” Jane was pre-deceased by her father J.L. Magrino Jr.., whom Jane and her sisters adored and were always so appreciative that he discovered the North Fork long before many others did, buying their home on Village Lane in Orient in 1965, which the family owned for 40 years.
A celebration of Jane’s life is being planned for the warmer months on the North Fork, the place where her happiest stories began, and where, for many, her bright spirit remains.