Janet Grigsby Jones

Janet Grigsby Jones, 91, passed away peacefully in San Diego on Monday, April 6, 2020 from kidney cancer. For those who knew and loved her, Janet will live on with her smile, generous spirit, and intellect.

Janet, the mother of sons Greg, Mark, Manson, and Ross, left her career as a schoolteacher and a librarian to raise her family while husband Wyman ran the Fort Worth and then Los Angeles library systems.

Janet was an independent woman for her era: After earning her BA at Sam Houston State in Texas in the early 1950s, she found a job teaching at an Indian school in Taos, New Mexico. In Taos, she learned to play classical guitar and knew painters and sculptors in the burgeoning art scene.

Later, Janet ran the library on the Bryan Air Force base in Bryan, Texas, met and married base marching band leader, officer's club jazz piano man, and library enthusiast, Wyman Jones. Sons Greg and Mark were born on the base, and Manson and Ross came later.

Janet ran an open house and kitchen for the friends and teammates of her sons in Palos Verdes, providing pots of food, counseling and consolation to those in need, and a couch to sleep on for those who had too much fun. Janet always had Lakers and UCLA basketball on the TV and could talk strategy with the most strident enthusiasts.

Janet is preceded in death by her mother and father, Edith and Jack Grigsby, and her sister, Margaret Grigsby Mottley. Janet leaves her four sons, three daughters-in-laws, seven grandchildren and two great grandsons. Janet will be laid to rest near her mother, father and sister in a family service in her hometown, Palestine, Texas.

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