Jane worked for the Red Cross in Baltimore and at the Corona Naval Base, where she met her future husband.

Mother of five children, Jane became active in politics hosting coffee-fundraisers for Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Estes Kefauver (TN).

She supported Adlai Stevenson for the nomination in 1956, attending the first in a long line of Democratic National Conventions.

Tolmach was an early supporter of California Governor Edmund "Pat" Brown, organizing pro-Brown rallies during the 1958 gubernatorial election.

She was fundamentally shaken by the assassination of RFK in Los Angeles, the day after she appeared with him at a campaign event in Oxnard.

Upon her death, August 27, 2013, her children agreed to donate her political records and memorabilia to California State University Channel Islands.