Jane Krom Sather became one of the early and most significant benefactors of the University of California once she settled on Cal as, according to university archivist Jim Kantor, “a dependable trustee for her considerable fortune.”

And considerable her fortune was; shortly after being widowed, Jane Krom Read married Peder Sather, a Norwegian man 32 years her senior who had made his fortune in banking. It wasn't long before Jane K. Sather was a widow again, as Peder died only four years into their marriage, leaving her a generous amount of money.

To honor her late husband, one of Jane Krom Sather's first donations to the university was to build a gate bearing his name: Sather.

She enlisted architect John Galen Howard to design the gate, who tapped Professor Melvin Earl Cummings to create eight marble bas-relief panels for the gate's columns.

This iconic gate has served as a backdrop for political movements, school spirit rallies, and even Hollywood movies.

When the gate was revealed, the nudes caused an “embarrassing uproar,” according to local historian Dennis Evanosky.

As a prank, students covered the nude figures on Sather Gate in oak leaves, prompting Jane K. Sather to fire off a letter to the University Regents concerning the “uncultivated" students and the gate's fate.

She defended the gate in her letter, saying, "Now I ask, is it wise to force culture and thus subject the beautiful though it may be to danger of defacement and probably mutilation? ... The whole matter has passed out of my hands and it is now up to the University. If they cannot protect it it is a great pity to have built it. The next manifestation of disapproval may be a coat of green paint. Nothing will surprise me, though I did not expect the attack to come so soon.”

Sather changed her tune, though, once she actually saw a picture of the figures, where she noticed the inscription "Erected By Jane K Sather 1909."

Embarrassed, she declared the nudes “extremely indecent" and demanded they be removed “immediately!”

The panels were taken off and lost, until they turned up sixty-seven years later in Edwards Stadium storage. A couple years later, the university restored the panels to the gate.

After funding the Peder Sather gate, Jane Krom Sather gave the university another handsome sum to build Sather Tower.

The inspiration for a bell tower came from her earlier years living in New York, when “[she] used to stand on Broadway at the head of Wall Street and listen to the chimes of Old Trinity (church) as tunes were rung out on them.”

It is thought that campus architect John Galen Howard was inspired by Campanile di San Marco in Venice, a bell tower built in the 12th century that fell in 1902 and was reconstructed in 1912.

Howard's earliest sketches of the campanile date from 1903, which would have only been a few months after the Venetian tower fell. He likely saw the collapse and searched for how to make a strong tower resistant to earthquakes; he did so by using 500 tons of steel for framing, which can be seen in this photo.

Jane Krom Sather gave the university two of its most iconic landmarks. In addition to these contributions, she also funded the “Sather Professorships” which “rotates among visiting scholars who also give public lectures in their specialties” and has a long and prestigious legacy.

Unfortunately, Jane Krom Sather did not live to see the completed tower, passing on December 11, 1911. Shortly after her death, according to historian Dennis Evanosky, Krom's step daughter filed a lawsuit contesting Jane's leaving the bulk of her father's fortune to Cal.

Her step daughter lost, but she saw to it that Jane would not be buried in San Francisco with her husband Peder. Instead, Jane was buried with her close friends, Mary and Francis Marion “Borax” Smith, in Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery.