Jane Apostol Obituary

Jane T. Apostol, daughter of Maurice Thornton and Ella Virginia Strasbaugh, grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, where she graduated from Goucher College with a degree in English. During the Second World War, Apostol was among the Goucher alumnae who served with the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) and processed deciphered messages that had been encrypted by German Enigma machines.

In the late 1940s Apostol moved to California with her first husband, Frank Eber Goddard Jr. (1915-2007), settling in Altadena, California. She remarried in 1958, having found in noted mathematician Tom Mike Apostol (1922-2016) her lifetime companion. They resided in Altadena and subsequently Pasadena, California until May, 2016. Jane fully embraced Tom's Greek heritage, celebrating its cuture and cuisine and learning to speak and write modern Greek. She was a volunteer at the Pasadena Art Museum until the early 1970s and until recently, was a long-time volunteer and independent scholar at the Huntington Library. Apostol's Collected Works (TMA Graphics, 2012) lists 34 articles and 15 books. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals, including the Southern California Quarterly and the California Historical Quarterly. Apostol is best known for her book South Pasadena: A Centennial History, 1888-1988 (1987, second edition 1991).

Apostol loved beautiful, hand-made letterpress books and was among the circle of printers, designers, authors and enthusiasts involved with fine printing in Southern California, including Grant Dahlstrom (Castle Press), Lawrence Clark Powell, John Lathourakis (Tabula Rasa Press) and the noted book designer and bibliophile, Ward Ritchie (Ward Ritchie Press), for whom she wrote a memorial tribute. In addition to this loose circle of friends, Apostol was also a member of the Zamorano Club, a Southern California organization of bibliophiles and manuscript collectors.

Apostol was preceded in death by her sister, Virgina Smith, and she is survived by her brother, Reese Thornton (Sebastapol, CA); her son, Stephen H. Goddard (Lawrence, KS); grandchildren Erica Goddard (Portland, OR), Emily Goddard Snow and Caitlin Goddard (both of Lawrence, KS); and great-grandchildren Noah and Hannah Snow (both of Lawrence, KS). The family suggests Memorial tributes in support of the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas or the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA.