Jan grew up in rural Madisonville, Kentucky, surrounded by the small farms, lush green hills, and rolling grasslands of Western Kentucky. After high school, she was offered a scholarship to attend university in Pasadena, California, where she received her Bachelor’s Degree from Ambassador College. During her tenure in Pasadena, Jan fell in love with her husband, Doug Park. They were married after graduation in 1972, and blessed with the birth of their only child, Kimberly Michelle, in 1975.
Jan was a beautiful woman, inside and out. Her life’s work was twofold - raising a family, and serving others. Her superpower was a deep sense of empathy and responsibility for others, and her faith gave her the strength to continue that work, even when her health left her with little energy and in terrible pain.
Jan’s love and energy was always focused first on the family. She saw that Doug had the love he needed to go out into the world to provide for them. She truly shined in her adamant determination that her daughter would have the opportunities she did not as a child. It brought her happiness to see Kim learning new things and finding her confidence. Jan gave Kim the freedom and strength to go out into the world and make her own way.
Doug’s professional life kept the family on the move from one state to the next, and it was Jan who kept the family together. Jan became an expert at moving, packing, organizing, feeding, dropping off and picking up, scheduling, cleaning, and everything in between from Alabama to Texas to Oklahoma to Colorado to Louisiana, then back to Texas! She was the heart of the spinning top, learning each new city and making every new house a real home for her family. In every new community, Jan would always jump in, ready and willing to serve others through her local church congregation. She would donate her money, time, food, love, and energy to those in need, always cognizant of each person’s specific needs. Her heart seemed to have immeasurable depths, and it was her great joy to give beautifully wrapped gifts to everyone.
At heart, Jan was a humorist. Without the likes of Erma Bombeck, Joan Rivers, and others, life might have, in Jan’s own word’s, “gone to hell in a hand basket”. Like Bombeck, she approached living with a vital mix of compassion and sarcasm, which served her well during difficult times. Jan also had her own comedy, writing letters and cards to long distance friends and relatives, healing both herself and the recipient with a recitation of the impossible situations mothers can find, adding the comments and comedy as a salve for stress or hurt. She had her own “column”, like Bombeck, and, if you were lucky enough to receive one of these, you knew your day was going to be better after reading.
As a modest attempt at trying to give Jan some of the same twinkle in her eye that she had given everyone, Kim and her husband, Damon, had a bet of sorts before every visit with Jan. Her laugh was infectious, so whoever could make Jan laugh the loudest and the longest that day was the winner. The prize was hearing her laugh.
Jan is survived by her husband, Douglas Park, her daughter, Kimberly Michelle (Park) Stelly, and her son-in-law, Damon Barrett Stelly. Her parents, R.V. and Dorothy, and her brother, Bill Kelley, preceded her in passing.
