Our Blessed Mom, Janee Marie Trybyszewski passed this life on March 3, 2021. She was born to Louis Richardson and Marion Emily Gerrells on May 22, 1924 in San Saba, Texas. She came to Austin to Business School when she was only 17 and boarded with Mrs. Johnson, Lyndon’s Mom who taught her to make wild mustang grape jelly. She also lived with Mrs. Price, who owned Price’s Dress shop. She modeled for Mrs. Price, jitterbugged at the USO and met our Dad, Felix J. Trybyszewski, a handsome air cadet who she married in 1943. They were married by the Reverend Chester Crow. Janee”s husband,”Tryb” flew in India and the South Pacific and died during the Korean War in 1952.
Janee and Tryb led a happy military life in the service. Martha was born outside Las Vegas and Joe was born in California. They were living in Virginia when Tryb was killed on a precarious mission. Following Tryb’s death, Janee settled in Austin with her two children, Martha and Joe. She made many dear friends in Austin and was active in PTA and scouts.
Before she married, Janee worked as a secretary for Jim Novy at the Austin Metal and Iron Works east of downtown Austin and for a title company. When Martha and Joe were half-grown, she worked for Alvis and Carsow Attorneys for several years, then in the Texas Legislature for Representatives Robert Fairchild, Charlie Jungmichel, and Senator Murray Watson. She then went to work for the Chemistry Department at UT and retired from the Physics Department at UT as an Executive Assistant.
Mom knew little about string theory but she knew how to save string. Her string ball became a monument to her administrative stint at the University of Texas physics Department where she became friends with eminent and renowned scientists. She watched the sunrise on the early morning walks to work with Hans Bethe and was rolled down Congress Avenue on occasion by John Wheeler in his vintage convertible. She was helpful to foreign professors, and was offered gifts from a box of cereal to land in New Jersey when they returned to their countries. Some physicists made a game of hiding Mom’s string ball in some unlikely place. Sometimes she showed mock anger and sometimes she was angry, but she often invited the ribbing. She was fun to tease and liked to play the sucker…. mostly. She was popular and well known at UT for many years.
Through the years, Janee volunteered through service organizations and independently, aiding the mentally ill, the impoverished, and troubled teens. In her later years she enjoyed travel, playing bridge with various groups, and studying her ancestors while continuing her volunteer work with the Hyde Park Church of Christ. She once made a missionary trip to South Korea with members of her church. She also volunteered at UT, welcoming foreign students and familiarizing them with a few American ways. She once demonstrated the American way by making fudge.
Janee loved life, loved God, her church, her family, her neighbors and her work.
She loved her idyllic childhood in San Saba in the midst of the Great Depression. San Saba was not simply the hub of the universe, it was paradise! She fondly remembered walking with her friend, Chukie in fields, picking bluebonnets forever and coming home with their skirts full. She remembered her Dad, Louie, playing baseball and getting paid for it, then later when he opened a barber shop and a beauty shop on Main street, cutting hair till midnight for a quarter or trade during the depression. She had an uncle, Doss Richardson who taught music to half the county. When the family would get together, everyone would play an instrument. Her Grandad played the fiddle, her Dad, the piccolo or the clarinet. She was a true Texas girl, always announcing, anywhere she might be in the world, that she was from San Saba! She also came from industrious and vital ancestors who were players in the beginnings and development of our country.
Janee loved the earth. She lived in awe of the many aspects of nature and saw miracles in things that others might take for granted. The rocks, shells and and fossils in every room of the house lay testimony to that fact. She loved to garden, plant, pull weeds, get dirty, then eat what she grew, tomatoes, artichokes, onions, radishes, chard, peppers, lettuce, squash, cucumbers and more at Sunshine Community Gardens where she enjoyed the comradery of other gardeners, like old farmers.
Mom loved the church, and put her faith in God, not men. She studied the bible throughout her life, and tried to live and adjust her life accordingly…as needed. She was a loyal friend and parent who stood by her friends and family in difficulties.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Tryb, her brother, Jerry Richardson and her sister, Louise Lacy. She is survived by her daughter, Martha Trybyszewski her son Joe Trybyszewski and his wife, Katy Levine among other beloved family members.
Funeral Services will be held with masks and distancing at Hyde Park Church of Christ at 2:00 PM Sunday, March 14th with a graveside service to follow.
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