Jane Ward, 98; Philanthropist Active in Many Civic Groups

Jane Ward, a philanthropist who was instrumental in starting and aiding numerous civic organizations in Los Angeles and Laguna Beach, has died. She was 98.

Ward, who co-founded the Southern California Republican Women’s Club in the 1950s, died Tuesday of pneumonia at a retirement home in Montecito.

Ward began her philanthropic and volunteer work with the Junior League of Los Angeles and Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, for which she was a founding member of its fund-raising group, Las Madrinas.

She also was a founding member of the Good Samaritan Hospital Auxiliary, the Mid-Town Club, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Music Center, the Blue Ribbon Four Hundred and the Hollywood Bowl Patroness Committee.

She served on the boards of the Otis Art Institute Associates and the Laguna Art Museum.

Ward also helped start the House Ear Institute Associates, and was a founding board member of the Laguna Art School and founder-president of its support group, the Designing Women.

Born in 1904 in Gainesville, Texas, Ward was home-schooled on a large cattle ranch before attending the exclusive Hockaday School in Dallas. After graduating in 1922, she and her four siblings moved to Los Angeles with their mother.

Ward attended the Otis Art Institute for two years and the State Normal School, which later became UCLA. In 1928, she married Robert “Pike” Brant, the son of Otto F. Brant, founder of Title Insurance & Trust Co. The elder Brant also had been a partner in a local land development group that included Harrison Gray Otis, owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Times; his son-in-law and future publisher, Harry Chandler; Moses H. Sherman; Benton Van Nuys; and Hobart J. Whitley.

Ward was a founding trustee of Pitzer College, and donated Pitzer Tower in memory of her husband, who died in 1958. Three years after his death, she married William Ward.

She is survived by her daughter, Marilyn Brant Chandler DeYoung of Santa Barbara; her son, David Brant of Kalispell, Mont.; nine grandchildren; and 18 great-grandchildren. Another son, Robert Brant Jr., and a grandson, Norman Brant Chandler, are deceased.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 580 Hilgard Ave., Westwood.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in Ward’s memory be sent to Las Madrinas of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Blvd., Mail Stop 29, Los Angeles, CA 90027.