My daughter, Janis Lynn Marlar Anglin!

One of the questions on my list is who are your children and write a little about them. Well, tonight I am writing about my oldest daughter. Her name is Janis Lynn but to us she has always been Jan. She was born in 1963, nineteen months after Jim and I married. We were so excited. We were young, living in government housing, Jim was working at the Vidette (The Tishomingo County News), and I worked as a secretary/bookkeeper for a auto parts company in Corinth, Ms, both of us earning 75 cents an hour!. It was a real stuggle but how proud we were, we had our own little baby girl. She was born at the Iuka Hospital on the exact day that Dr. Cosby had told me the first day he told me I was pregnant! He laughed and told me that he bet he couldn't do that the next "three" times! Jim chose her name. We would go to concerts by Wendy Bagwell and the Starliters and one of the backup singers was named Jan and he always thought she was so pretty so it just told me, she will be Jan and you can choose any name you want so I can call her Jan :-) so Janis Lynn just seemed like it fit. It was so odd because then you didn't know what you were having until they actually arrived, but we never had a boy's name chosen and it was a good thing because we never needed one.
She was such a good baby. It was almost as if she knew she had young, dumb, parents and she did. When she was 18 months old we moved to Memphis. We lived three blocks from the Memphis Zoo and I was off work each Wednesday so I would put her in a stroller almost every week and she and I would go to the zoo. We could amuse ourselves for hours just watching the animals.
She went to Merton Ave Baptist Church Daycare and for two years she attended their kindergarten. She really thought she was smart because she had so much schooling. One day I told her something and she disagreed and I said no I am right and she said, no you are wrong and I ought to know cause I have been to kindergarten! She was only five years old. How can you not love that?
She started to school in Memphis (Graves Elementery in Whitehaven) but only went there for about six months. We were living across the street from Graceland and she and my fifteen year old neice stayed at the gate so much that they became good friends with Elvis' uncle Vester and when Elvis was touring, he would ride them around on the grounds of the estate.
After going to Iuka, Hernando, and Horn Lake she actually graduated from Southaven High School. At age 16 she went to work at McDonald's in Southaven and worked there for two years. You would think that she would hate hamburgers but she still loves "Mickey D's" today. Sometimes I think they made their slogan "Lovin It" after her! Jan was a very realigous teen and was very active in all the teen activities at Southaven Church of Christ.
After high school she moved to Iuka, because in her heart she had always been a small town girl. One week end she called and said she was bringing home someone to meet us. I knew then he had to be someone special and he was. When they got ready to leave she hugged my neck and said, "Don't you just love him to death?" I knew then, wedding bells would be ringing soon. And they did. Her wedding was a simple, old fashioned, outside, country wedding that everyone enjoyed.
As the years passed by, she and Timmy had three adorable children, but life wasn't all roses as their second child, Kelsey, was born with spina bifida and didn't survive. The kids thrived in small town life with sports, cheerleading, acedemics and all the other aspects of small town life.
Her oldest, Stephany, is now married with two boys of her own, and will be getting her Bachelors Degree in accounting in May, and just started a new job at a local high tech space industry company. Her son, Andy, is a union member and travels around the country working at power plants and nuceular plants.
Timmy is a supervisor at a local steel plant. Jan has worked several different office jobs, but the one she has now is the lowest paying but most satisfying. She is Executive Director for our local historical museum. She is responsible for every aspect of everyday operations for a growing museum and a research library that had visitors from more than twenty seven states last year. She spends a lot of her own time and money to be sure that future geneations will know their heritage. I try to volunteer and help her as much as I can.
I am so proud of the woman that my daughter has become. I would like to take credit for all of it but I know that I can't. She has been an inspiration for me. I might not be the Christian I am today, if it had not been for her being so faithful when she was a child and a teen. When I see her speak to a group of well educated men and women and they tell me how intelligent and knowledgeable she is, I swell with pride.
She is currently serving as an officer on the board of museums for the State of Mississippi. Not bad for a kid from a town with only 3500 population, and one red light!
To say I am proud of her is a understatement and as her Dad and I grow older we have to count on our kids for not only moral support but also physical support. I know that when we need someone we will always have someone we can count on.
If I could I would shout it from the rooftops.
I LOVE YOU JAN ANGLIN!!!!!!! And I am so proud to be your mother!