Former King Township councillor Jane Underhill was a champion for environmental causes across the township, and an advocate for the protection of the Oak Ridges Moraine and Ontario Greenbelt.

She was an active member of the group Concerned Citizens of King Township. Her motivation wasn’t selfish, it was also for the betterment of her King neighbours.

“She just felt that she wanted to improve the life of people in King Township,” said James Wemyss, Underhill’s husband of 26 years.

Underhill died Feb. 8 at the age of 83 surrounded by loved ones at Southlake hospital.

Underhill was a councillor for two terms and missed out on the mayor’s seat by 19 votes in 2000.

She ran as a green candidate, opposed to the development of the Oak Ridges Moraine, southern Ontario’s so-called rain barrel and the source of drinking water for more than 250,000 people.

She was against the extension to King of the York-Durham sewage system — better known as the Big Pipe — which runs north from Lake Ontario at Pickering to Newmarket, according to a column by the Toronto Star’s Jim Coyle published a month after her defeat.

“Jane Underhill was an unlikely crusader,” Coyle wrote. “She came to politics later in life, running for King Township council in her 50s after growing alarmed at what breakneck development was doing to the village north of Toronto in which she had raised a family.”

Coyle wrote that it wasn’t out out of the question that a mayoral candidate who didn’t win might end up making one of the more significant long-term impacts on the future of the GTA.

“In the end, Underhill lost by just a handful of votes,” Coyle wrote in 2000. “But, in many respects, her campaign succeeded, the environmental consciousness she raised contributing to a significant anti-development groundswell.”

Underhill first moved to King Township in the late 1950s, and she started her advocacy work almost right away.

“When she wanted to push her baby carriage uptown, there were no sidewalks. So, she went to see about getting some sidewalks,” Wemyss said. “Then she wanted to get a kindergarten so, she fought to get a kindergarten here.”

One of Underhill’s biggest accomplishments in King Township was the saving of the blue heron rookery.

“The developer wanted to build over there and she fought against it,” Wemyss said. “She went to battle for that and, of course, she did win that battle.”

Underhill was also a dedicated family woman.

“She was a very nice wife, a good wife. She was a good mother and she was really proud of her children,” Wemyss said.

Underhill is survived by her husband James Wemyss, brother Jim (Laurene), children Kelly (Paul), Kathryn (Patrick) and Mark and stepchildren Steve (Ainslie), Judy (Chuck) and Karen (Nik), as well as several grandchildren.

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A public celebration of life will take place later this year, following a private family burial.

Donations will be accepted to the Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust online at oakridgesmoraine.org/give.