A look at the life of Jane Silva (1951-2012)

(The following column was written by Peter Finney Jr. and published in the Clarion Herald on May 19, 2012. Mrs. Silva passed away this week following a lengthy battle with cancer.)

The book has been there for years, squeezed into the bookcase in her tiny principal’s office, the one with the cinderblock walls just to the left of the front entrance to St. Michael Special School. Jane Silva pulls the “The Blue Rose” by Gerda Weissmann Klein from the shelf and begins reading.