Jane Seymour Wilson, 95, dies after contracting COVID-19

Jane Seymour Wilson, a pioneering consumer journalist, businesswoman and 48-year member of the National Press Club, died May 29. She was 95, had suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and died after contracting COVID-19 at the Arlington nursing home where she had lived for two years.

Wilson was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Cumberland, Maryland. 

She graduated from Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, in 1946 with a bachelor of science degree in home economics.  Hood later awarded her an honorary doctorate for her accomplishments as a journalist and businesswoman.

After college, Wilson worked as a dietitian for the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. and married her high school sweetheart, Howie Wilson, in 1948. Her son James said they enjoyed more than 60 years together hosting family gatherings and parties including annual visits to Stone Harbor, New Jersey, and traveling the world.

She donated time to the Red Cross, the 4H Club and the PTA while raising three children in Rockville, Maryland. The family later moved to McLean and Vienna, Virginia.

When her children reached school age, she resumed her career as the Washington representative of a food sales promotion company and an advisor to a food distributor. She sold her first freelance article and joined Federal-State Reports as assistant editor of the Dairy Industry Newsletter. She started her own newsletter, Of Consuming Interest, covering the consumer movement and regulations. James said she loved covering Congress and was an ardent consumer advocate.

"She took me to luncheons at the Press Club," James said as he recalled hearing Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during the Watergate scandal and quarterback Sony Jurgensen when he retired from the Washington Redskins.

Wilson and her aunt, Olivia Nicoll, built a business from three to more than 25 employees to include a consumer legislature research division. She was president of the Home Economists in Business and traveled in the U.S. and overseas to report on consumer issues. She retired as president of her company but continued as a part-time freelance journalist, editor and writer for community and organization newsletters.

James said she is remembered by family and friends as a “force” who, aside from work, was an avid gardener, reader, cook, traveler, and party organizer. She was active in the McLean Garden Club and initiated the garden projects at Ashby Ponds in Ashburn, Virginia, where she lived for 10 years until moving to an Arlington assisted living facility. 

Survivors include three children, four grandchildren, eight great grandchildren and a brother. 

She will be buried alongside her husband at the Arlington National Cemetery.