Edith Lank: 1926-2023 Founder of JASNACWNY

Edith Lank 1926-2023

Sad news. Edith will be missed by all.

In Memoriam

Edith Lank

Central and Western New York

Edith Lank died January 1, 2023. She was born Edith Handleman on February 27, 1926, in Chelsea, Mass., and graduated from Penn Yan Academy and Syracuse University (Phi Beta Kappa). In 1948, she wed Norman Lank—a loving partnership that lasted until his death in 2011. Having worked for newspapers since her high school years, she created an advice column on real estate in the 1970s that eventually was distributed to more than 100 newspapers. She wrote her last column in 2019. Edith also taught at St. John Fisher College in Rochester and lectured on real estate nationally, appearing frequently on television and radio. She wrote real estate licensing textbooks for New York and New Jersey. She was also an avid bird watcher and certified scuba diver.

For Janeites both in her own region and across North America, Edith was a guiding light for decades. Several years before attending her first AGM in Baltimore in 1980, she founded the Rochester Jane Austen group that later became JASNA Rochester (and that merged with JASNA Syracuse in 2015 to become JASNA CWNY). She also served on the JASNA North American board; was an enthusiastic mentor to younger Janeites; answered the JASNA toll-free hotline (when there was one) for several years; and enlivened countless Rochester meetings and several AGM breakout sessions with her trademark wit and verve. She was also always willing to share her remarkable collection of Austen-related books and ephemera—including a complete set of first editions, an original signature, and Lord Brabourne’s edition of Austen’s letters including family and other annotations—with JASNA members, as attendees at her Chicago 2008 breakout (see Persuasions 30: 76-87) can attest! Much of her JASNA ephemera collection, offering delightful documentation of early AGMs, is now in the JASNA archives at Goucher College.

Edith had several other articles published in Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line:

• Annotations on the Bellas copy of the Letters: https://jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol29no1/lank.html? 

• On Darcy Wentworth: https://jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number11/lank.htm

• Who was Harriet's mother?: https://jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number7/lank.html

• On "lop't and crop't": https://jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number7/lank-2.html

Edith is survived by her sons, Avrum (Dannette) of Milwaukee, WI, and Dov (Constance Smith) of Port Moody, BC, Canada; a daughter, Anna (Michael Mortenson), of Manhattan; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Memorial donations may be made to JASNA, earmarked for the Edith Lank Fund, which was established in 2022 by Edith’s children and announced at the Victoria AGM by her son Dov (David).