(1944 – 2024)
Diane Janney Kerr, 80, has peacefully passed from natural causes, leaving the Kerr and Williams families, and the Jacksonville North Riverside residents of Edison Avenue, McDuff Avenue, and Stockton Street, to mourn but also celebrate her extraordinary life. Diane was a woman who spent decades as a fierce advocate of community safety, neighborhood preservation, and animal welfare. She was a daily inspiration to her family and a recognized community leader and mentor to Jacksonville’s citizens committed to safe, thriving neighborhoods and residents.
Diane was the wife of the late, revered veterinarian Vincent J. Kerr, DVM (1937 – 2018) for 55 years. She met her husband at a country club where they both worked during college. Before marrying Dr. Kerr in 1963, she also worked part-time at a bank while she studied business at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.
She and “Doc” shared a lifelong love of animals and a full-time partnership in operating the Edison Avenue Animal Hospital. The couple moved to Jacksonville in 1974 when they purchased the veterinarian clinic and became the third veterinarian practice in that location. Diane and Doc served pet patients and their grateful owners for 39 years until January 2013, when Dr. Kerr suffered a career-ending fall and spinal cord injury.
Diane was considered a friend to many who remembered her quick, irreverent, and nonstop sense of humor. However, those who volunteered with or knew Diane knew that her humor would vanish, and she could turn tough in a heartbeat if necessary. When crime began to spiral in the Edison and McDuff Avenue/Stockton Street area, she worked tirelessly to convince reluctant residents to report anything they observed or knew to Crime Stoppers.
Her fearless mission to protect her community from crime, and to save and preserve local historic or culturally significant buildings and homes, made her a community hero but often alarmed her family and friends, who sometimes feared for her safety. She did not hesitate to personally confront anyone she saw or suspected of dealing drugs or committing other crimes and believed direct communication and immediate intervention were ways to discourage offenders. For years she worked in a close, mutually-beneficial partnership with law enforcement.
As their once-quiet neighborhood went through increasingly alarming changes, Kerr successfully campaigned to bring First Coast Crime Stoppers to the community and more aggressively publicize the need for neighbor participation. She developed first-name-basis relationships with Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) officers and Sheriff John Rutherford. She once said that many had urged the Kerrs to move away to a “better” area, but that was not how Diane Kerr handled challenges.
“We never left our neighborhood because we wanted to keep helping our neighbors, their pets, and the North Riverside Community,” she said. “You can’t expect the police or anyone else to save your neighborhood if you won’t help.”
She was responsible for galvanizing her neighbors, property owners, and city officials to find creative ways to save and restore historically or culturally significant buildings in the area, including homes and churches. It gave her great pleasure to drive by and proudly point out structures she helped to protect or that had been improved or renovated through cooperative communication with property owners or homeowners.
Diane managed their family of three children and the thriving veterinarian clinic, leaving her husband free to care for and save countless pet patients over those years. Both active in animal welfare and rescue, they quietly offered free care to local rescuers. Their phone was answered at all hours by Diane – not a message machine or answering service. She would calmly and patiently tell the caller to bring the injured or ill animal straight to them. The Kerrs lived steps away from the sprawling clinic property in a home next door. It was a well-known fact that if an animal could be saved, the Kerrs would do everything humanely possible to ensure healing or continued good health. If the pet could not survive, they cared for it as tenderly as if it were their own pet: extending comfort and compassion that helped ease the owner’s painful loss.
Diane supported Doc in the couple’s commitment to promoting and facilitating local spay and neuter services. They donated their assistance, supplies, and the use of space and equipment at their clinic to First Coast No More Homeless Pets during that group’s critical, early formative years. Edison Avenue Animal Hospital hosted the nonprofit’s free or low-cost, high-volume spay and neuter clinic on-site enabling the sterilization of thousands of animals to help stem the tide of unwanted litters.
Diane’s accomplishments as a community volunteer were recognized by many, but among her greatest honors was receiving the 2003 Florida Times-Union EVE Award for Volunteer Service. That prestigious award recognizes women who have made important, lasting contributions to their communities.
Other notable achievements include her founding of the North Riverside Community Development Association. She was a member of the Northwest Jacksonville Citizens’ Planning Advisory Council, working with JSO to eliminate criminal activity in local parks, making them safe for children again by involving the Police Athletic Association. She directly involved the community in the “Take Back Our Parks” movement by doing door-to-door neighborhood surveys to learn what amenities and activities residents needed or wanted in their parks.
In the early 2000s, Diane was part of the combined city and citizen group that researched, prepared, and submitted a 748-page Feasibility Study, Environmental Impact Statement, and Contamination Assessment Report, to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The study focused on three Northwest Jacksonville Ash Superfund Clean-up Sites: Lonnie C. Miller, Sr. Park, Forest Street Incinerator site, and 5th & Cleveland Incinerator site. The goal was to define and accelerate the soil contaminant clean-up and remedial action plan to restore those locations.
Her love of animals began with dogs and cats, but she also loved riding horses in New Jersey and New York, where she was a gifted young equestrienne who competed at Madison Square Garden. Diane was close to her brother Josh and enjoyed visits with his family. When she had free time, she loved picnics and being outdoors, birdwatching, vegetable gardening, Jazzercise, photography, riverfront parks and shelling on South Florida beaches. Trips to the Jacksonville Equestrian Center horse and dog shows and competitions were favorite outings.
She and Doc had raised wholesale chrysanthemums for extra income early in their marriage, and flower gardening became a favorite pastime. An especially cherished activity was caring for the other Kerr children: her many pet Chihuahua dogs over the years, especially the beloved Henry Miller, Princess, and Pip.
Diane’s heart for animals was made clear on her 70th birthday. In celebration of that milestone, she filled out an application to become a volunteer downtown at Animal Care and Protective Services: undoubtedly the most experienced volunteer to ever apply!
Diane loved nothing more than time spent with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She was tremendously proud of her daughter Pamela’s founding of The Resident Community News Group in Jacksonville and she held a special place in her heart for her son-in-law, Seth Williams. Her life and legacy are celebrated by her daughter Pamela Bradford Williams (Seth) and their daughters Sophia and Tarryn Bradford Poling (Brandon), great-grandson Bradford Poling and great-granddaughter Brinlee Poling; sons Daniel Kerr and Vincent Kerr (Lisa).
