Jane Edwards Williams Obituary - Menlo Park, CA (1945-2026) 12%

By The Mercury News60%

8/2/2026, 12:05:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 13 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Appeal to Emotion, and Negativity Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 47% saturation with 218 hits. Analysis detected 677 faulty-reasoning hits from 464 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 22.1% and a BS Rank of 12% (25,520 of 28,846 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 88.50% of the article peer group.

Jane Edwards Williams peacefully passed away on July 11, 2026, having twice turned back cancer. 
She was born May 29, 1945, to Elmo Wendall and Shirley Fredericka (Poland) Edwards in Antioch, Illinois. 
After graduating from University of Michigan with a Bachelor’s of Art in Education in 1966 Jane and her friends ventured West in pursuit of adventure. 
On Valentine’s Day 1968, she met her soon to be husband on a first date: John Lyle Williams, Jr. 
They thereafter married on April 19, 1969, in her hometown of Antioch. 
While still serving as an Army Captain’s wife in White Sands, New Mexico, the young couple welcomed their daughter, Jennifer, in 1970. 
Seven years later, having returned to the Bay Area, their son Benjamin was born in 1977. 
Jane returned to school and graduated from the Hayward State School of Nursing in 1980 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing. 
For more than a decade she worked as a pediatric nurse at both Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto and Kaiser Hospital in Redwood City. 
In 1987 Jane again returned to school graduating with a Masters Degree in Marriage, Family and Child Counseling from Santa Clara University. 
She then embarked a long and rewarding career as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. 
She loved her work and clients, only closing her practice a few months prior to her death having seen and helped thousands of men and women as both a nurse and a therapist. 
Her empathy, thoughtfulness and caring changed the lives of the patients she treated. 
Their lives improved. 
Their wellness restored. 
Her personal life was no less enriched. 
She spent nearly six decades traveling the world with her family and friends. 
She had untold adventures from the rugged beauty of the Trinity Alps Wilderness to the striking wonders of London, Dublin, Provence and Rome. 
Many of these odysseys were in the loving company of her closest friends. 
She was an inspiration as a friend, sister, mother, grandmother and wife. 
She will be missed by all that loved her, and that she loved so deeply. 
The World has lost a gentle soul. 
It can never be the same. 
Things are not beautiful because they last forever, but because they do not. 
Jane was beautiful. 
With her passing, Jane leaves her husband of 57 years, John; her daughter, Jennifer Hultgren and grandchildren, William and Elizabeth Hultgren; her son, Benjamin Williams and daughter in law, Lisa McGarry Williams; brother, Doctor James Edwards and sister-in-law, Cheryl Edwards; sister-in-law, Janet Williams and brother-in-law, Robert Gruner; niece and nephews, Emily and Dean White, and Jonathan Edwards. 
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel" - Maya Angalou 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 6.7%The Mercury News: 1.0%East Bay Times: 2.3%Confirmation Bias6.7%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.2%East Bay Times: 0.3%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 5.0%The Mercury News: 1.5%East Bay Times: 1.8%Availability Heuristic5.0%This article: 5.4%The Mercury News: 0.6%East Bay Times: 0.7%Representativeness Heuristic5.4%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.4%East Bay Times: 0.3%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.4%East Bay Times: 0.6%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.5%East Bay Times: 2.6%Framing Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.3%East Bay Times: 0.3%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.2%East Bay Times: 0.3%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.1%East Bay Times: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 4.7%The Mercury News: 3.3%East Bay Times: 1.6%Optimism Bias4.7%This article: 1.3%The Mercury News: 0.9%East Bay Times: 1.0%Pessimism Bias1.3%This article: 11.9%The Mercury News: 1.0%East Bay Times: 5.5%Negativity Bias11.9%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.4%East Bay Times: 0.8%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.1%East Bay Times: 1.1%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 1.0%East Bay Times: 0.8%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.3%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 19.2%The Mercury News: 27.3%East Bay Times: 5.6%Halo Effect19.2%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.3%East Bay Times: 0.6%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.7%East Bay Times: 0.3%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.1%East Bay Times: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.6%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.2%Straw Man0.0%This article: 5.4%The Mercury News: 1.9%East Bay Times: 1.9%Appeal to Authority5.4%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.7%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.2%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.0%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 2.6%East Bay Times: 2.7%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.3%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.1%East Bay Times: 0.2%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 17.7%The Mercury News: 10.5%East Bay Times: 4.2%Appeal to Emotion17.7%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.4%East Bay Times: 0.4%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 1.6%East Bay Times: 1.6%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.4%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.0%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.1%East Bay Times: 0.1%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 11.0%The Mercury News: 2.6%East Bay Times: 1.5%Anecdotal11.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 1.5%East Bay Times: 1.1%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.0%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.0%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 5.4%The Mercury News: 0.8%East Bay Times: 0.9%Unattributed Quote5.4%This article: 5.4%The Mercury News: 0.5%East Bay Times: 0.5%Quote-first Misdirection5.4%This article: 47.0%The Mercury News: 24.1%East Bay Times: 5.9%Biased Writer Voice47.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 1.4%East Bay Times: 2.3%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.4%East Bay Times: 0.9%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.0%East Bay Times: 0.2%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%The Mercury News: 0.7%East Bay Times: 0.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

464 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker5.4%attributed speech439writer words
Selected voice

Maya Angalou

100%flagged-word coverage
25 attributed words100% of attributed speech47% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Unattributed Quote+100.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%Maya Angalou: 100.0%100.0%Quote-first Misdirection+100.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%Maya Angalou: 100.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice+56.0 ptsWriter: 44.0%Maya Angalou: 100.0%100.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.