Wanda K. Janos

December, 1920 - December, 2015

Mom was welcomed into God's merciful and joyous realm on Wednesday, December 23. She had a long, interesting life full of community involvement, devotion to her domestic and church families, and many adventures in the world around her. She involved herself in the Richland world non-stop for 65 years. She will be missed by many.

Mom grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, the youngest of 5 siblings, the children of Pearl (Bartlett) and Frederick Edwin Kunz. She had a great love of Shawnee Park across the parkway in front of her home and the Kentucky cardinals that sang outside her bedroom window. At the park, she was invited by the park superintendent's daughter to ride horses on the bridal trails. She also learned to play tennis there. By the time she was 18, she played tennis well enough to win the annual city championship. Adventures in parks and the sport of tennis remained life-long interests for her. After high school, she enrolled at the University of Louisville to study librarianship and early childhood education. These interests also had a life-long impact on Mom.

She was courted by a young Angelus Alexander (A.A.) Janos in the summer of 1940 while they were employed by the E.I. Dupont company in Wabash, Indiana. After a yearlong engagement, they married In the summer of 1941, and settled into an apartment in Louisville.

Mom worked as a travel scheduler and purchasing clerk, and Dad, a chemical engineer educated at the University of Virginia, worked with other Dupont engineers hand-picked by Walt Simon to master the supervisory protocols and requirements for operating the Manhattan Project's first nuclear reactor. Before the move to Richland in 1942, Mom and Dad spent 7 months in Oak Ridge, Tennessee where Dad trained with the team on a mockup of the Dupont reactor. They loved Oak Ridge's proximity to the Great Smokies and its wilderness.

Mom focussed on civic involvement when she arrived in the township called Richland. She worked as a nursery aide for the Richland School District until Angelus's thyroid illness caused them to reassess their means of survival. In 1948, with a close friend who was also a nursery aide, Mom opened a pre-school based on Montessori principles and tools for early childhood learning. This was the birth of Mom's  "Corner Nursery School."  She worked as the owner-operator of her pre-school for 35 years, and with the help of many fabulous co-teachers, had a successful career preparing her young charges for their public school experience. Mom also taught Sunday school at All Saints Episcopal on Kimball Avenue, a church that she and Angelus helped co-found.. Mom volunteered as a stagehand for the Richland Players and with the maintenance team at the Allied Arts studio in its early days. She also volunteered as a docent at the CRHEST museum.

Family life in Richland meant raising a young son and exploring the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Mom adopted Richland's city park next to the Columbia River as a replacement of her hometown park and served on the Richland Park Board. At that time, Riverside Park, as the park was known then, had a gazebo that hosted military bands in the summer and dancers during festivals. The Janos family spent many days at Riverside Park; Angelus even caught steelhead from the park's riverbank before McNary Dam changed the river's flow.

The Blue Mountains, Cascade Mountains, and Mount Rainier National Park were also magnets for the Richland Janoses offering fishing, hiking, and snow skiing. And when it came to camping, the Tieton River basin was the destination, especially in the summer when fresh peaches and cool watermelons were abundant. It never hurt to have mushrooms emerging in the forests around the campgrounds. As you can imagine, Mom became an avid mushroom hunter; a culinary delight, free for the picking. As the years went by, she had many adventures exploring new and exciting places.

Special thanks go to Mom's cardiology and neurology specialists, the memory-care professionals and support staff at Guardian Angel Homes, the end-of-life health professionals at the Tri-City Chaplaincy, Mom's spiritual guides: the clergy, church family, and Pastoral Care volunteers from All Saints Episcopal church, the nursing and physical therapy professionals at Tri-City Home Health, the caregivers and support staff at Visiting Angels, the health professionals at the Kadlec Wound Clinic and the Senior Clinic, and Mom's lifelong friends and neighbors. Thanks also to the community members who have kept Mom in their prayers over the passed year, and to the professionals at Einan's at Sunset for their compassionate mortuary services.

A memorial and internment service will be held in April of 2016 for those who wish to share their regards. This is in keeping with Mom's desire for her ashes to be buried as the daffodils started to bloom and the desert had awakened from its Winter slumber.