she could not recover. She was 92. She is survived by her daughter, Mary Cail, of
Charlottesville Virginia and her grandson, Jack Edward McDaniel of Fayetteville, North
Carolina, as well as two devoted nieces, Sharon Ellis Joyner of Roswell, Georgia and
Laura Smith of Fayetteville.
Seven months ago, Janice McDaniel left Fayetteville to live the remainder of her
life with her daughter, who had transformed most of the upstairs of her home into an
apartment for her mother. “Miss Janice” had round-the-clock care from five loving
caregivers, who were (no matter what transpired) cheerful and attentive. The day before
she became so ill, she was talking about hummingbirds and shelling butterbeans, and
reading the book Quite a Year for Plums. Up until the end, she enjoyed doing crossword
puzzles, although she had relinquished Scrabble, unable to bear the occasional defeat.
In her prime, she was able to read so quickly, it seemed she was turning one page
after another in a book, with not much more than a long glance at each. She read Bleak
House in a matter of spare hours over a few days, commenting when she was finished,
“Charles Dickens is a superb writer, but I do think he’s entirely too wordy in this
novel.” She knew the meaning of words like umbriferous and nainsook.
Janice had a surprising, wry wit, which she reserved for those she knew well.
Once, when asked whether an acquaintance was perhaps a bit self-impressed, she
remarked in a deadpan tone, “He thinks he has direct blood ties to the heavenly
Father.” Such humor notwithstanding, she possessed a childlike faith, and when she
prayed, it was in easy, reverent language, as though to a true father she loved and
trusted and to whom she was, in simple fact, inexorably linked.
Her life, like most, was overshadowed by sadness, but she experienced deep joy,
too, especially in the relationship she had with her husband of almost 67 years, Jack P.
McDaniel, M.D., who died on May 10, 2017. She describes her relationship with him
during college and the early years of marriage as nothing less than idyllic. Her letters to
him during their courtship, written in a bold hand and embellished with her drawings,
were spilled over with irrepressible love. Janice and Jack both graduated from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She taught school while he went through
his medical training, and they lived in a small house near campus with a cocker spaniel
named Scorchy. She drew on memories of those years and the years spent raising her
children, Mary and Greg, to sustain happiness after age diminished her ability to
venture much further than the bedroom.
The most profound loss of her life was the unexpected death of her son, Greg,
who collapsed of an undiagnosed heart condition while raking leaves. She did not,
however, allow herself to be brought to bitterness by this unspeakable grief, and instead
eventually was able to focus on “the blessing,” as she put it, extravagantly, many times,
“of having had a strong, magnificent son to love for fifty years.” Greg was, at birth, so
weak he was hardly expected to live.
A small memorial service for Janice McDaniel will be held in July at Christ
Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. Later in the summer or in early fall, her
ashes will be interred at Fair Promise Methodist Church in Glendon, North Carolina.
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