Edith Jayne was born in Vienna in 1936 to a Jewish father, Rudolf Kurcz(1904-1987) and Roman Catholic mother, Maria (née Rixner, 1905-1968). Rudolf Kurcz had a private medical practice in Vienna Maerzstrasse 84, where the family apartment was also located. Maria was raised as a Roman Catholic but in adult life was non-observant. She worked as a seamstress until she married in 1930. Edith had an elder sister, Lieselotte, born in 1932.

Shortly after the Anschluss a group of Nazi officials came to the family's apartment and requisitioned it as a district party headquarters and Rudolf Kurcz's contract of employment was terminated. Rudolf and Maria temporarily stayed at a hotel in Vienna and their children went to stay with relatives in Korneuburg. Soon Korneuburg was declared\"Judenrei\" so the children were sent to their paternal grand-mother in Stockerau. The family wanted to emigrate to the United States but American quota law only allowed a small number of Hungarians (Rudolf was born in Hungary) to immigrate each year. Maria and the children could have gone immediately under Czech and Austrian quotas but the family did not wish to be separated. In July 1938 they emigrated to Lisbon where they stayed with relatives until they were able to go to the United States in May 1941.

Rudolf retrained in New York and started working in medicine again from 1942 until his retirement. Rudolf and Maria Kurcz became American citizens in 1947. Edith trained as a teacher. She got married to George Mico in 1956 with whom she had two children. They moved to the UK in 1967 where the marriage was dissolved. She remarried to Terence Jayne (d 1998) in 1975.