In the 90’s, serving on a Workforce Development Board, Janet was asked to give motivational talks to job-training graduates. To prepare, she reflected on and compared the reasons for her own set-backs, crises and victories. Citing examples from her life, she urged the graduates to always be sure to cultivate, value and celebrate the people in their lives who make a positive difference by their encouragement and inspiration.

In 2003, the untimely death of a beautifully eccentric friend motivated Janet to write about “Pearly” and to archive many fond memories of knowing her.

Later, as more friends died, Janet found writing about them and her other friends and relatives revealed the facts of her own life in an interesting and reflective way.

A boarding school survivor, who can document 45 address changes, Janet encountered many up and down life experiences and risked two marriages along her path.

She was a 1951 Polio epidemic victim, college dropout, office manager and self-employed bookkeeper. In more incarnations, she was a historic property renovator, urban pioneer, slumlord, partner in water well drilling and other construction companies, financial winner and loser.

Now retired and a volunteer, she writes occasional opinion and newsletters, reads and relishes politics. Her stories have been published in the annual “Oasis Journal” for writers over age 50. Once, proudly, her 12-column-inch opinion article was published right below the newspaper fold, as a contra piece to one by William Kristol.

“Peter Pan” is a tempting taste from her larger, not quite finished, work, “The Glass Is Half Full.”

For 80 years Janet has been the fun-loving person her picture presents.

She has also had her share of big ups and big downs that have filled those years.

She writes her memoirs, now about 44 chapters, describing those persons and events that have influenced and enhanced her life.

The overall title of her memoirs is fittingly, "The Glass Is Half-Full."