[Alumni-chat] memories of Jean Janis

[Freda B Birnbaum]

Yazz Allen wrote a superb recollection of Jean Janis.  Hard to top that! 
Thanks so much.

I last visited her in 1990 when I came to the reunion and the weeklong 
work project preceding it.  She and Fran Lemcke (widowed in 1965) had set 
up housekeeping together, and it proved providential as Fran sadly 
developed Alzheimer's.  Jean and I corresponded briefly after that.  It 
was clear that she was very devoted to Fran and looked after her well.

I have occasionally Googled her but nothing ever turned up.  After Yazz' 
post, I did just now and learned to my sorrow that she died on November 
21, 2002, at age 75, in Xenia.  If you Google on "Jean Janis" + "Yellow 
Springs" you will turn up the obituary from the Yellow Springs News.

The Antiochian (the alumni newsletter) really faded out, and had it not, 
she certainly deserved a major writeup, as did Fran.  She was "classic 
Antioch" (as was Fran).  Jean and Fran and Dixon Bush co-taught "Workshop 
in Small-Group Functioning" the year I took it.  (It was sometimes 
abbreviated to "Small Group Fun.")

She meant a lot to me and I'm sorry she's gone.  She was a class act, and 
it was no act!

Freda Bluestone Birnbaum '65