Janice Lee Wilhelm Jahn

Janice Lee Wilhelm was born in the old Saint Vincents Hospital in Portland Oregon on November 8, 1951 to Donald Henry Wilhelm and Virginia Pauline Lloyd Wilhelm. Her parents were 22 and excited to start a family. Janice was the first of their three children, later to be joined by brothers, Gerald and Dennis. Janice was a happy child and quickly developed a signature smile that stayed with her until her last days. From the time she was one until she married Eldon, her family lived in NE Portland on 18th ave.

As a child, Janice's parents both worked outside the home. She would spend her days as a young girl and then afternoons after school at her grandparents home. Janice loved spending time with her grandma. She learned basic sewing, housekeeping, cooking and always looked forward to the pink crystal candy jar with the pink mints. She attended Sabin Elementary School from Kindergarten through 8th grade. A couple of her memories from that time were trying out for the Junior Rose Festival Princess, which she didn't get. However, her parents told her “you will always be our princess”. Then in 8th grade, she was the captain of the safety patrol (crossing guards that helped the younger kids make it safely to and from school). For High school, she attended Polly Tech (now James Monroe). In her senior year, she was one of her school's finalists for Rose festival Princess.

Growing up, her family was active in the Hyland Park church of the Nazarene. She had fond memories of attending children and teen camps, camp meetings, and participating in various choirs, Nazarene Young People's Society and childrens camp as a counselor. Her mom was the missionary president and her dad the Sunday school superintendent at their church, she loved helping them with the many projects they had. Janice always loved children. She worked in the church nursery and enjoyed babysitting. She would go along with her dad as he drove the Sunday School Bus and was his “assistant”.

During her growing up years, she enjoyed the many parties and entertaining that their family would do at in their home. Two of her favorites were the all night New Year’s Eve Parties and the Easter morning Sunrise Breakfasts. She also enjoyed the many family trips that they took to the beach. Overtime, this became her favorite place to be.

Janice was involved in the Nazarene Evangelistic Team (NET) on the child evangelism team . Her sophomore year of high school during spring break, the NET team was out touring and she was assigned to stay in this older single lady's home in Klamath Falls. The lady had made them root beer floats and mom proceeded to puke all over. Eldon (who was on one of the NET singing teams) was one of the other students assigned to stay at this house and since the elderly host lady was struggling, he helped clean up the mess. This is how Janice and Eldon met.

Later that spring, Janice and Eldon attended a Billy Graham meeting together and then started dating the summer of 67. Since they lived a couple hours apart, dating took place on the weekends and during special activities such as youth functions, camp meetings and Far West Classic Basketball games. They also enjoyed going to various parks, the beach, and she would come watch his sporting games. While dating, Eldon gave Janice a cross necklace which she loved, (cherished and never took off) until it broke and then was in her purse when it was stolen a few years back. Eldon got her a replacement the following Christmas which she continue to wear with pride. Anytime she went into a test or surgery which she was unable to wear it, someone in the family had to have it on their person until it was returned to her.

She attended one year at Northwest Nazarene College and then moved back to Portland to work. The summer of 1970, Jan and Eldon spent all of their spare time canning. They obtained any jar that could make a seal from family and friends and canned all kinds of fruits and vegetables. December 12, 1970 Janice married Eldon at Portland First Church of the Nazarene. This was the start of what would be a 45 year marriage. Half of the belongings they took to Idaho was the 300 jars of canned food they had worked on during the summer and the meat from Eldon's animal they butchered. The young couple didn't have much money but they had love for each other and never went hungry. Janice was great at paying attention to details and started working as a teller at a bank while Eldon continued to attend Northwest Nazarene College.

In the fall of 1971 the young couple made their way from Idaho to Salem, where they attended the Salem First Church of the Nazarene. Here Janice continued to work for a bank. In Salem, Jan spent lots of time with her church friends as Eldon would travel during the week. They often took the weekend to head to the beach for some quality time together.

Around 1974, they moved again to Eugene, Oregon. Here Jan started working at First International bank. The first 99 days she worked her drawer balanced to the exact penny. On the 100th day is was April fools day and she was one penny off. She was very shook up about it and always thought someone had done it to her on purpose as no one had ever gone that long without being even a penny off.

She worked in the bank for a couple of years until she was blessed to become a mother, at which time she took off to stay home with her young child, soon to be children. January 9, 1977 she gave birth to her son Brian. When Brian was a few months old the family moved to Great Falls, Montana. They attended the Great Fall Church of the Nazarene. 16 months after Brian's birth, she had Tami. This was a very stressful time in Jan's life as her mother was sick with breast cancer. A couple weeks after Tami was born she packed up the kids and went to Portland to spend a week in the hospital with her mom. The nurses brought in a bassinet and crib for the kids and her mom (Virginia) was able to see the grandchildren before she passed in June of 1978.

In 1980 the family moved to the Seattle where they met what would become their closest life long friends, Larry and Kay Vandel. They attended the Kirkland Church of the Nazarene. Mom loved these next few years of her life as she stayed home with Brian and Tami and cared for them with all the compassion and nurturing a mom could give.

In 1982, the family moved to Beaverton, Oregon and started attending the Beaverton Church of the Nazarene. Jan continued to stay home with the children, however, to help with the finances, she ran a day care from the family home. She was a very simple person, but in her simplicity she always tried hard to make birthdays, other special events and day to day life fun.

In 1983, the family built the home in Beaverton, where she would later depart this earth and go to Heaven. When her kids were in full day school, she returned to banking. She worked for US National Bank for 18 years. Starting as a teller then moving to trainer, local auditor, district auditor and then in the loan department. Over her years of banking, she was personally robbed three times, one of which was at gun point. Her ability to pay attention to details allowed her to communicate to authorities the needed information and all three where caught, tried and convicted of their crimes.

Janice was active in what the family was doing. She sat at numerous basketball, baseball, football, water polo games and swim meets. She taught Nazarene Caravans and helped her daughter Tami reach her goal of getting all of the badges. She was supportive of Eldon's dream to help the district with the purchase of Kellogg Springs Camp and start the development. While Janice didn't take the lead on many activities, you could always count on her to be supportive in whatever she could do. She loved the numerous fishing, crabbing, and camping trips the family took together. In 1992 Janice and Eldon started attending the Hillsboro Church of the Nazarene.

In 1998, US Bank closed its loan center in Beaverton and she chose not to move to the new center in Minnesota. At that time her Grandma, who she had always cherished, lost her leg and could no longer live by herself. Janice and Eldon moved Grandma into their home and Janice became her caregiver. Janice focused on helping her grandma experience and live life to the fullest. After grandma's passing in 2001, she worked as a receptionist at the Hillsboro Pediatric Clinic for just under 10 years and then didn't work outside the home again.

In 2009, Janice became a grandmother to her first granddaughter, Leva. While her favorite time in life was being a mother, being a Nana was even better. The first year of her life, she and Eldon would keep Leva every Friday night while Tami and Matt worked. Then in April 2012, while greaving the loss of her father to Parkinsons, she helped welcome her second granddaughter, Melanie, to the family. She moved to Washington to stay in the hotel for the first few days to help out until Matt and Tami could come home with Melanie who was 5 ½ months old at the time. Nana and Melanie shared a very special event, they had the same birth date.

Janice loved to travel and see new places. Some of her favorite highlights were going to Alaska, Cabo, Canada, and the many trips with Eldon for his work. They also loved traveling with their friends. She loved attending family camp and loved it even more when people would play games with her. She never traveled without a game.

In August 2012, Janice was diagnosed with Rectal Cancer. While the last 3 ½ years have been of great struggle health wise, they also contained some of her most favorite times while spending time with the grandkids. Janice enjoyed life to the end making this journey a journey of no regrets. She was able to spend special time with each side of our families. The family went to Disneyland and she was able to share her love for rides with the grandkids. Janice who was sick still spent 12-14 hrs a day in the parks enjoying every minute. Tami also took her to Prince Edward Island for a special mother daughter vacation.

One of the grandkids' favorite activities was cuddling because that was something she could always do. As a transition gift she made photo blankets so that she would always be able to cuddle with them. In January of 2016, Janice and the family made the difficult decision to stop chemotherapy. Janice's last trip was a spring break animal road trip with Tami and her grandkids. She got to ride a camel, sit within 4 feet of a cheetah, hold a baby bear cub, feed and pet an elephant and touch numerous animals. The trip ended staying at her favorite place, the beach.

The family all had an impromptu meeting with Janice Tuesday April 26th. They told her she was loved, would be missed, but didn't want her to suffer any longer. She was told to not hang on and let her body relax and go to Heaven when Jesus came for her. In her last days, she was surrounded by family and friends. One week and 6 hours after the family conversation Jesus came to her side and took her to heaven. She left in peace surrounded by her family.

Janice Lee Jahn is survived by Husband, Eldon Jahn; Children Brian Jahn and Tami Andres, Son-in-law Matthew Andres; Grandchildren Leva Andres and Melanie Andres; Stepmother Eunice Wilhelm; and brothers, Gerald Wilhelm and Dennis Wilhelm.