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Jeanne graduated from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, with a major in Speech Pathology. After teaching a year she took a job with Young Life in Davenport, Iowa, and took seminary classes with the Institute for Youth Ministries affiliated with Fuller Theology Seminary.

After marrying Paul Olsen, a professor at Augustana, she returned to college to get a degree in Elementary Education and taught three years. After being a stay at home mom for five years she began volunteer work at a local hospital as a Befriender, and was invited to take Clinical Pastoral Education, and to join the staff of Genesis Medical Center Davenport, Iowa, as a Lay Chaplain doing work with their Grief Recovery Group, and to work with the cancer and AIDS patients. She now serves the Orthopedic, Medical and Neurology units. In addition, Jeanne is the director and teacher of the Befriender program, with 52 volunteers who have taken 20 weeks of training to be “a listening, caring presence” to the patients in the hospital.

Jeanne developed the Music for Care and Healing program which makes available CD players and music for cancer patients going through treatment.

In addition, she created the Last Letters to Loved Ones program, which encourages and helps terminally ill patients write letters to their family expressing wishes, hopes, memories and thanks. These letters are sealed and delivered after the patient dies, and are treasured and savored for a lifetime by the recipients.

Just recently she trained to be a Labyrinth Facilitator and will be teaching classes in the spiritual use of the labyrinth.

In the summers Jeanne and her husband are often found teaching and working at Holden Village, the Lutheran retreat center in the Cascade Wilderness of Washington. Jeanne is a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa.