Janet Mcilroy

Janet McIlroy, a longtime resident of Mayfair Village in Columbus, died peacefully in her sleep of congestive heart failure on Oct. 12 at Buckeye Care and Rehab in Lancaster. Janet spent almost her entire life in Ohio but was born on Jan. 27, 1944, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where her father Robert L.A. Clark was stationed during World War II. Both Janet’s parents were from West Texas, but school and work brought her father first to Columbus and later to Oberlin, where Janet grew up. Her father was a professor of physical education and a coach at Oberlin College. Her mother, Hettie Lou Bagley, later became an English teacher and guidance counselor at Oberlin High School and then a school psychologist in the Amherst City Schools. Due to her poor vision, Janet didn’t start reading until the third grade. Perhaps this early experience led to her vocation as an elementary school teacher and, after obtaining a master’s degree at John Carroll University, a reading specialist. She taught in the Cleveland City Schools for 20 years and was especially fond of the time she spent at Giddings. She also sang in the choir at the Euclid Avenue United Church of Christ, the denomination in which she was confirmed at First Church in Oberlin. Janet learned to deal with adversity and death at a young age. Her younger sister, Emily Alice, died of polio in 1948; and her father died of lung cancer in 1959. In later years, her mother was nearly killed in a car crash in 1980 and later developed Alzheimer’s. She died in the family home in Oberlin in 1992. Janet married her beloved late husband Keith in 1965. They were both graduates of Oberlin High School and The Ohio State University and were married for 50 years until his death from Alzheimer’s at Mayfair Nursing Home in 2015. For many years they made their home in Cleveland Heights where they raised their two daughters, Ann, born in in 1970, and Amy, born in 1973. Janet and Keith moved later, first to Oberlin, then to Columbus, where they lived with Annie and her husband Vernon Kennedy before their move to Mayfair. Janet and Keith were actively involved in the lives of their children and grandchildren. Janet derived great joy from seeing all her grandchildren graduate from high school. Janet was very resilient, making a new life for herself and Keith with each move. At Mayfair she was a much beloved resident, playing bridge and taking up painting as her father’s sisters had done before her. She is survived by her daughters Ann Kennedy (Hilliard, Ohio) and Amy Watson (Felton, California); their spouses Vernon Kennedy and Philip Watson; her grandchildren Keith Robert and Daniel Kennedy and Julia, Kathleen, and Joseph Watson; her brother Robert Clark (Manhattan, Kansas); her cousin Shirley Rogers (Pueblo, Colorado); and her sister-in-law Maïda Wedell (Cheyenne, Wyoming) and her nephew and niece, Carl and Allison Wedell. Interment is at Westwood Cemetery in Oberlin on Oct. 22 at 3 p.m., followed by a memorial service at Mayfair Village in Columbus on Oct. 23 at 2:30 p.m. All are welcome at both events. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the American Heart Association or Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.