In Memoriam | Janet McBride Wells, 1930 – 2025

||| FROM ROBERT HERRUP |||

Jan Wells ended her earthly journey in her Eastsound home of nearly 44 years at the age of 95.

Janet McBride Wells, April 7, 1930 – July 9, 2025

Shortly after the birth in Toronto, Canada of Janet Mary McBride, the second daughter of Flora (Veitch) and Charles B. McBride, her family moved to Port Chester, New York, where she and her older sister, Jean, were raised. The family returned for summer vacations to a cabin her father built at Normandale, on the Ontario side of Lake Erie, and Jan never lost touch with her Canadian relatives and ancestral Scottish roots.

Jan entered Wellesley College at age 17, graduating four years later with a bachelor’s degree in botany in 1951, marrying William Wells, an MIT graduate with a PhD in engineering, that June.  The first three decades of their 48-year marriage were rather peripatetic ones in which they lived in seven different states for various periods of time as Bill worked at several renowned labs as well as the Pentagon, spent a year teaching and, for a while, farmed land he had inherited in North Carolina, an endeavor in which Jan participated significantly while raising their three children, maintaining the household, and as time permitted, volunteering at various organizations, leading a Girl Scout troop for several years being one such activity she found particularly rewarding. During this time, primarily in her late thirties and continuing into her forties, Jan also learned to fly a glider, ultimately soloing; took up downhill skiing; swam competitively on a women’s team; and began producing pottery after receiving instruction in the basics.

Unfortunately, Parkinson’s disease necessitated Bill’s taking early retirement, resulting in the couple’s final relocation in 1981 to Orcas Island, which they had discovered on a chartered sailing vacation. With very minimal assistance Jan nursed Bill through a long physical and cognitive decline, over nearly two decades. Her extraordinary efforts kept him at home for all but his final ten months when Jan returned east for cancer surgery followed by radiation therapy. Along with their annual monthly vacations on Hawaii’s Big Island Jan, having taken art classes on Orcas, found much-needed respite from her caregiving responsibilities through drawing and watercolor painting, which she continued to enjoy for the rest of her life.

Following Bill’s death, Jan established a women’s study group on Orcas, a source of pride and much satisfaction; she traveled to Europe, South America and Asia, and resumed her volunteer activities. Financial contributions notwithstanding, Jan found it most meaningful to support organizations and individuals using her knowledge, skills, time, effort and caring, such as heading up the Episcopal church’s “Garden Gang” of groundskeepers; baking 1000 cookies for a bake sale to help finance the Senior Center’s new building while serving on its board; acting as secretary of the Orcas chapter of the AAUW; and, especially, providing personal aid and support to individuals faced with or enduring significant health issues. During Jan’s seventies her youthful spirit was particularly evident: as a first-time backpacker at 72; swimming and/or hiking daily for a month on the Big Island at nearly 75; utilizing a backpack and only public transportation while traveling in Italy and Chile at age 77.

Jan suffered a stroke at age 78, resulting in very significant paralysis of her left side.  With extensive rehabilitation she re-learned walking assisted by a quad-cane and caregiver for safety.  In a truly remarkable display of courage and strength of spirit and body Jan learned to negotiate steps on a difficult staircase in intimidating surroundings, due to the nature of her disability every downward step a veritable leap of faith that always engendered fear through never elicited a failure to take it.  Maintaining this same brave, intrepid spirit in the face of increasing age and significant disability enabled Jan, accompanied only by Robert, her mate of almost a quarter century, to travel to her beloved Hawaii several times for multi-week trips, and additionally up to Vancouver and down to Seattle for theater and dining as well as to tackle various challenging outings on Orcas.  After a lifetime of great competency and independence Jan showed exceptional grace and acceptance of her loss of autonomy and self-reliance due to her stroke, with the loss of her ability to provide “hands-on” volunteering a considerable hardship.

It is obvious from the way Jan lived that she understood what defines the meaning of one’s life––what determines its value not being what one has or acquires, but what one gives.

Following a stroke of such severity and despite the disabilities, the discomfort, the deprivations she subsequently endured, she lived far longer than one would expect, largely because Jan wanted to live. And while she lived quietly without fanfare or ostentation, she accomplished so much in so many ways due to a fierce tenacity, informed by her resolute determination. Until mere days before her end, she remained bright-eyed, witty, engaged, and articulate.

At 95 Jan had outlived almost all of the long-term friends she remained close to over the years, some relationships going as far back as her high school and college days.  Besides her son, Sandy (Colleen), and daughters Sue and Jane, all of whose accomplishments and skills she was tremendously proud, Jan is survived by her five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. She had a rotating staff of kind, nurturing caregivers; a massage therapist, Anita, who provided care (and listening, and Jan’s choice of 1940s–50s music) weekly or more until Jan’s last day; and Robert, a friend of 43 years and mate of over 24 years, during the last 16½ years also serving as primary caregiver, providing care, albeit of a somewhat different nature, with a level of skill, understanding and intuition that he believes suffers in comparison to that which exemplified the loving care and creation of “home” Jan provided him all 24½ of those years.

The departed still live on in the acts of goodness they performed and in the hearts and lives of those who cherish their memory.  May the beauty of Jan’s life abide among us as an everlasting, loving benediction.