Janet Bush died at home in Seattle, WA on August 14, 2023 at the age of 80. Throughout her life, Janet embodied a cheerful positivity, as well as a calm wisdom, and she cherished her relationships with family, friends and community.
Born in southeastern Minnesota in 1943, her family moved to Salem, Oregon, in 1948 where she spent her childhood and school years. Her parents were both school teachers, and Janet’s family spent summers taking road trips to North Dakota and Minnesota to visit relatives.
She attended University of Oregon where she received a degree in English. During the summer after Janet’s sophomore year at University of Oregon, she was working as a nurse's aid at Salem Memorial Hospital when she met a charming, young radiology technician named William Bush, Jr (Bill). The couple married two years later in 1965 and shared 58 years of marriage together. During their early years as a couple, they lived first in Portland, Oregon and then in Poplar, Montana where Janet worked as a teacher. In Montana, Janet and Bill had two horses which provided wonderful times riding the country-side, trail-rides, sleeping under the stars with their horses snuffling nearby. After Bill’s residency in radiology in Seattle, they moved to Hamburg, Germany where Bill completed his fellowship and Janet worked as a receptionist in the radiology office. She also taught English at a language school there. They loved their years living in Europe and maintained close friendships with the people they met during those years, making many visits over the next decades after moving back to the states.
After returning from Germany, they settled in their home in Seattle on Queen Anne, where they would spend the next 48 years and raise their family. After living in a small urban apartment in Hamburg, they had few possessions when they bought their home. Janet met someone who was moving onto a sailboat and needed somewhere to store his Baldwin grand piano. Janet offered to store it for him and then ultimately bought it for their home where it became a centerpiece of the living room. Janet took piano lessons during those early years in their home and practiced daily. She loved classical music and hosted house concerts. She enjoyed singing and was a member of the church choir at Queen Anne Lutheran Church and later joined the Seattle Shores, a women’s barbershop chorus.
Janet also loved gardening and they had many fruit trees and beautiful flowers in their garden. Her home was warm and welcoming, and she hosted many gatherings large and small for family, dear friends and beloved neighbors. She was known for her delicious baked goods - perfect star-shaped shortbread cookies and delicious fruit cobblers and pies (often made from marionberries which originated from Marion County Oregon where she grew up). She was often called upon for her Scandinavian baking and cooking skills - lefse and rommegrot were yearly holiday treats and she often made the festive many-tiered kransekake for special events such as weddings, anniversaries or baptisms. She maintained a strong connection to her Scandinavian heritage and she made many trips over the years to visit cousins and family farms in Sweden and Norway, including a special final trip in 2015 with family.
Her final years were marked by a slow progression into Alzheimer’s dementia; she was fortunate to be able to remain at home, with Bill by her side, thanks to her wonderful in-home caregivers Mary, Mary, Rose and Eunice.
Janet was survived by her husband Bill, who passed away one month and one day after she died. She was preceded in death by her parents and her sister-in-law Susan Epley. She is survived by her daughters Anne Bush (Jennifer Magnani), of Seattle, Washington; Jane Harris (Colin Harris), of Minneapolis, Minnesota; her granddaughter Estelle Harris; her brother John Stanley Sather and her brother-in-law Ken Epley.
Donations can be made in her memory to the Alzheimer’s Association.