Jan Ranger Herreid

Jan Ranger Herreid

On Jan. 8th, my Mom, Jan Ranger Herreid, passed away in her sleep, at the age of 90, leaving us all stunned and wrecked. Growing up, my mother was the sun and we were all planets revolving in her solar system. She was the light and we shined with her love and energy. With the sun gone, we flounder in darkness. 

 For 67 years Jan was my father Kipp's constant companion: his confidant, dance partner, best friend and travel companion. She was the person with whom he pondered the cosmic questions of the universe while also sharing the simple pleasures of peanut butter sandwich picnics. They had a love story for the ages having married each other just six weeks after meeting in the tiny town of Kerrville, Texas, where she was a vivacious elementary school teacher and he was a visiting biology graduate student studying the migratory patterns of bats. He was smitten and she told him he’d better hurry up and marry her or she was heading to Venezuela to teach English. Mom was a take-charge gal and you’d better not dally. A Texan through and through with a “Hi darlin’ ” and “Bye honey, ” this five-foot-two, raven-haired beauty knew how to ride a horse, shoot a gun and jitterbug. She and her two older sisters, Sally and Marilyn, turned heads in their teenage years as they roared around Kerrville in an orange, World War II surplus army Jeep. She had a difficult home life with parents who drank and fought too much, but she was whip smart and knew it. Mom might have been in a small town, but she had big dreams and big ideas. She wanted to see the world and there was no stopping her. 

 After my folks married, they left Kerrville in her blue Chevrolet convertible and traveled to Baltimore where my Dad pursued his PhD at Johns Hopkins University and Mom taught kids in the inner city. She took teaching seriously, visiting her students' homes so she could better understand their lives. She knew how critical it was for children to feel loved and worthy. 

 After a couple years of marriage I popped into the picture. They named me Kimberly and put me in a dresser drawer at bedtime. Dad finished his PhD in Biology at Penn State and landed his first teaching job at the University of Alaska. My parents began bouncing back and forth between Coral Gables, Florida, where Dad studied crabs and Fairbanks, Alaska, where he studied frogs. Mom loved Alaska despite frozen car batteries, mountains of snow and a bad decision to try to make an arctic fox a pet. Always anxious to learn, Mom earned a masters degree in counseling and guidance during their stint in Fairbanks. 

 In 1965, they left the land of the midnight sun, with my brother Ky in Mom's belly, all their belongings stuffed in a Volkswagen Microbus and me squished in the cargo bay. We landed in Durham, North Carolina, where Dad studied fruit bats at Duke University. While he lectured and did research, Mom taught my baby brother how to walk and talk and I learned how read, ford a stream on my bike and love dogs. During our two and a half years in North Carolina, we picked up a tiny, scared German Shepherd puppy we named Mishka who cowered behind our basement furnace for days. Mom showed us how patience, kindness and a tasty treat could turn fear into love. Mishka finally wagged her tail and always loved Mom best. 

 Next stop, Orchard Park, New York, where Dad taught Physiology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Buffalo. This was the big dream. A house in the country, an outstanding school system and acres of woods and ponds surrounding us. Mom never seemed to tire. She baked bread, made our clothes, gardened, whipped up meals from scratch, canned pickles, made jellies from the currants, plums and grapes in the yard. She arranged the peonies in our garden into elegant bouquets. Using Julia Child's cookbook, Mom cooked elaborate meals including escargot, steak tartare and fresh baked blueberry pie for faculty dinners. She was Martha Stewart before homemaking became vogue. 

 She listened to my brother and me as we went through all the trials of growing up, asking probing questions and offering suggestions whether we wanted them or not. We always knew she had our backs. She took care of us in dozens of ways like refusing to let a teacher medicate my brother when he was unruly in school. Ever the teacher herself, she helped that teacher learn how to deal with Ky’s dyslexia, a little understood condition at that time. She comforted me when I didn’t get the parts I wanted in plays. When I was 12, she got me a horse and convinced my Dad and our neighbors to build a stall in our garage and fence in our field for my beloved palomino, Miss Tassie. She took us swimming in ponds, on long bike rides and taught us how to play tennis. 

 Once we got into our teenage years Mom went back to work first doing public relations for the Orchard Park Chamber of Commerce and then managing a swanky women’s clothing store, which was perfect since she loved beautiful clothes. 

 She could be glamorous, with her hair swept up in bejeweled clips and a tight skirt cinched around her impossibly tiny waist. She'd whirl around a ballroom with my Dad; their perfect symmetry the envy of all who watched. I’m sure she imagined they were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gliding across the silver screen. While growing up, she spent endless hours at the movies and Mom knew the names of every actor and actress from the Golden Age of Hollywood. She loved to sing, belting out, “Won’t you come home Bill Bailey,” loudly and wildly off key at our neighbor’s home as he played the organ after dinner parties. 

 My Dad’s hobby of magic was embraced as an opportunity for Mom to play assistant, wearing sparkly shoes, rhinestone earrings and a top hat. My brother and I joined the family magic act and “Magic by Kipp, A Family Affair,” was born. In later years my parents brought their abracadabra to hundreds of Head Start children as a magic duo. Mom liked the kids. Dad liked introducing magic to a new generation. 

 Over the years my parents traveled voraciously. My father’s sabbaticals were a chance to see the world. When I was 15 and my brother 9, all four of us traveled to India for four months. My mother excitedly planned the trip with great organizational skills, dreaming of elephants, maharajahs, the Taj Mahal and flowing saris. In reality, the trip was more arduous than expected with dysentery, heart-wrenching poverty and a soul crushing caste system. We did see ornate temples, the soaring Himalayas, and, yes, the picture-perfect Taj Mahal, but the juxtaposition of immense beauty and terrible suffering changed us all. Mom kept a beautifully written journal, which was a great gift to the family, so we would not forget the truth of the trip. 

 We also toured Africa as a family: an adventure full of migrating wildebeest, zebras, sleepy lions, ear-flapping elephants, giraffes and sneaky hyenas. We camped in Egypt enduring pelting sand in the desert, floated down the Nile in a felucca and felt the smallness of our lives at the foot of the Sphinx. This was again a trip arranged and planned by my intrepid mother. Over the years she and my father traveled across seven continents, collecting treasures and memories along the way. After their many travels they finally settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which had the sunshine my Mom needed and the dry, sparse landscape she loved from her childhood. 

 Once I married my journalist husband, John and Ky married his high school sweetheart, Jennifer, we were blessed with children and my mother embraced her new role of "Granny Janny.” She planned tea parties, trips to Fantasy Island amusement park, joyfully dressed her four granddaughters in frilly dresses and cheered her grandson Ayden when he played volleyball. It was a joy for her to see her granddaughters go into professions, which were not accessible to women when she was younger. Sierra, my daughter, became a physician assistant. Her granddaughters Roxanna and Miranda went into law, and idolized Ruth Bader Ginsberg as my mother did. Granny Janny was thrilled when her granddaughter Phoebe became an elementary school music teacher, combining two of her great passions, music and teaching. And she loved seeing Ayden pursue acting, growing more confident and sophisticated with each performance. 

 It is nearly impossible to sum up my complex, smart and talented Mom. My daughter called her a trailblazer. My brother described her as an optimistic realist, a Pollyanna without rose-colored glasses. She relished instructing people and organizing trips. She could strike up a conversation with anyone and pull out their secrets and dreams within minutes of meeting them. In a different time, she could have become a journalist, although she once told me she would have liked to be President of the U.S. 

 She was fiercely loyal and a friend to the underdog. She was extraordinarily generous. She and my father put my brother’s children through college, assisted my daughter through PA school and gave yearly checks to all the grandkids to help give them a leg up on life. She was strong; she was opinionated. If you took a misstep, she would guide you forcefully back on track. She had plenty to say on many topics and if you didn’t heed her advice, she’d offer it again. Free of charge. You ignored her at your own peril. She was fond of saying, “Beware of beginnings” and when she got older she railed against the ravages of aging reminding us all that, “life does a number on you,” and growing old wasn’t for sissies. She survived breast cancer, viral meningitis and glaucoma, struggling to cope with her diminishing ability to see. For a person who loved beauty, this was the cruelest of fate’s tricks. 

 Mom’s gravitational pull was fierce and if you were in her orbit, she held you tight. We are all somewhat lost without her. But she showed us all how to be strong, to be bold, to be good human beings. We hope to shine on brightly without her.

 Jan is survived by her loving husband, Kipp Herreid; sisters, Sally Huff and Marilyn Fierst; her children, Kimberly Rebchook (John Rebchook) and Ky Herreid (Jennifer Herreid); and adoring grandchildren, Sierra Rebchook, Roxanna Herreid, Miranda Herreid, Phoebe Herreid and Ayden Herreid. She is also deeply loved by many nieces, nephews and friends.