Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Jane MATHER
Jane Mather Sullivan, 83, of West Chester, the third generation of her family to be master of the Brandywine Hounds, a foxhunting club she ran for decades, died Tuesday of chronic obstructive lung disease at her daughter's home in West Chester.
Born in Bryn Mawr, Mrs. Sullivan was raised in Haverford, and graduated from Haverford Friends School. In 1931, she moved to Brandywine Meadow Farm, West Chester, and devoted her life to foxhunting.
The sport included the breeding, raising, and training of fox hounds for the hunt, which ran from September to March on land across a wide swath of Chester and Montgomery Counties.
Mrs. Sullivan's family sponsored the private hunt and made arrangements with area farmers for the hunt to cross their lands.
In the early years, as many as 100 hunters on horseback would participate with their dogs, hunting on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
But by 2004, when the hunt was disbanded, their numbers had dwindled to 15 or 20 because development had consumed the farmlands, said her daughter, Cindy S. Bedwell.
"We were running out of country," Bedwell said.
The idea, Bedwell said, was for the hounds to catch the scent of a fox by fanning out across the fields. When a veteran hound would find a "line" of scent, the hound would "speak," or bay, and all of the hounds would chase the fox to its burrow.
"They will hunt their hearts out for you," Bedwell said.
Once the fox had gone underground, the dogs were praised and the hunt was over, Bedwell said. It was a gentleman's sport that Mrs. Sullivan inherited from a long line of Mather forebearers.
Mrs. Sullivan met her husband, Jeremiah J. Sullivan III, in foxhunting circles. The two married in the late 1940s.
"It was her whole life," Bedwell said. "She and my father basically kept the hunt going."
Mrs. Sullivan hunted with the Brandywine Hounds from 1931 until 2004. She became master of Fox Hounds in 1959, making her the third generation to be master of the Brandywine Hounds.
Mrs. Sullivan asked Bedwell to become joint master of Fox Hounds in 1987. "I was very honored," Bedwell said.
Mrs. Sullivan stopped the hunt in 2004 as the sport declined. "Hounds were getting hit by cars. It was safer and time to quit."
All that remains of the Sullivans' Brandywine hounds is a kennel with five dogs, Bedwell said. If they hunt, the dogs cannot be kept as pets.
Surviving, in addition to her daughter, are a son, Daniel; a stepdaughter, Jane Kohler; five grandchildren; three step-grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren.
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