Janet Maurice Martel

Janet Martel was born as Janet Swindler, Dec. 19, 1928 in Pampa, Texas. She was preceded in death by parents Roy and Willie Lee Swindler, her sisters Carita Griffin and Nancy Sessions, her Daughter-In-Law Beth Hicks and Son Michael John Hicks. She is survived by four grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren and her son Ben Hicks.

Janet was born to a kind oilfield roughneck and a dysfunctional mother at the beginning of the Great Depression. She soon learned if she was going to survive she would have to fight.

Her proudest achievement was graduating from Texas Technological College May 22, 1950. She was the first in her family to graduate from college and would remain so for many years until her Grandson Zane Cody graduated from the same institution in 2009. Janet was highly intelligent, organized and socially adept.

In 1951 she married and in the next five years had her two sons. In 1961 she was assaulted by her husband resulting in a miscarriage. She then decided to take her sons to Midland to try to scratch out a living. For a long time, her life was going to work at her job at an insurance company, coming home, changing clothes and going to Gibson's Discount Center to work, then coming back home at night.

Having enough money was always a problem. A few weeks before one Christmas, she told her sons there was not going to be any Christmas presents because there was no money. Christmas came, there were two stockings stuffed with small toys and trinkets. Best Christmas Ever! Despite limited resources, she managed to provide movie tickets, slot cars, visits to restaurants, and even a soap box derby car to her sons.

After a tumultuous second marriage, the husband disappeared to a veteran’s hospital in Waco. He left behind his son Jimmy, who had nowhere to go. She let him continue to stay with us. God knows she didn’t need another mouth to feed. Many years later he contacted Janet as he was dying of AIDS and told her she had given him the only real family he had ever had.

There is always tragedy lurking around the corner. One late night she received a call that her son Michael has been riding in a car involved in a head on collision where two people had died and one was left crippled, Her son was found in the back floorboard blooded with a crumpled door with its inner mechanism forming a perfect cross above his head.

As the decades went by, Janet experienced many ups and downs. In her final decade she became more lost and restless. She spent the last four months of her life in a nursing home. In the end she seemed to find peace. She expressed her genuine love for her father, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and beloved dog Pepper.

That is not the person I choose to remember.

I remember the woman who moved to a town in the West Texas wasteland, who had nobody helping. Against all odds, she provided shelter, food, clothing, movie tickets, Christmas presents and, if necessary, physical protection for her children. There is no greater love than that.

As Janet lies before us, we remember that due to the sweat, tears and sacrifices she made, we are here. Without her, the majority of those present would simply not exist. For that and many other blessings of her life, we are grateful to her.

A graveside service for Janet will be held at 12:00 PM on Monday, April 18, 2022 at St. John Cemetery, 2071 Westinghouse Road, Georgetown, TX 78626 with Minister Barbra Hernandez officiating.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.cookwaldendavisfuneralhome.com for the Martel family.