Janice Cummings Vaughn: Vignettes of a Life Well lived

Janice Cummings Vaughn, 76, of Beaumont, died Sunday, June 5, 2016, at Christus Hospital St. Elizabeth, Beaumont.

Born at home into a poor farming family in Butler, Missouri, in 1939, Janice was raised with the strong ethical values of hard­working Midwestern people: honesty, thrift, and dependability. Her father picked corn to scrimp together the $25 fee the local doctor charged to deliver a baby, and the doctor was stunned as he was expecting the usual butter and eggs as payment. Her father lovingly teased her his whole life that he wasn't sure she was worth it!

Janice attended one room school houses through the 8th grade and excelled in her studies, completing her homework by oil lamp­light as the luxury of electricity was not brought to her home until she was in the 9th grade. She finished up her daily schoolwork rapidly, and prided herself on being able to listen in on the older students' lesson and knowing the answers before they did!

Her strict, fundamentalist parents frowned on extracurricular activities outside of church or academic pursuits, so Janice was not allowed to attend school football games and certainly not dances. After graduating Salutatorian of her class, Janice longed to escape her rural lifestyle and attend college. Her father had only $3 with which to send her, but she bravely set her sights on Southwestern Missouri State Teachers' College in Springfield and paid for her schooling as she went, mainly working at the Gospel Publishing House and occasionally waitressing. She saved money by walking or taking the city bus wherever she went.

Easter morning 1960 found Janice visiting her family and attending Assembly of God Sunday School where a rather impolite young man kept staring at her, which Janice handled with her usual grace and composure. The two met again at the bus stop headed back to school, and as Janice's mother knew the young man and his family from town, she introduced them. The young man quickly took the opportunity to suggest they sit together, and Janice accepted the invitation without hesitation. The couple's long distance relationship flourished, and by the fall of that same year the young man proposed. Knowing that her parents would disapprove of the union, Gary and Janice eloped in the spring of '61 to Miami, Oklahoma, escorted by friends, Judy Kay and Dick Sturdevant, and were married in the Assembly of God Church. After a one­ night honeymoon in Springfield, the newlyweds were back in class on Monday.

Janice moved to Rolla and took a secretarial position with Dean Herschcowitz, while Gary completed his chemical engineering degree at Missouri School of Mines. The couple then moved to Tulsa so Gary could obtain his Master's degree in chemical engineering. They bought their first car, used of course, after they had been married a year, and moved to Baton Rouge, where Gary worked for Exxon and Janice earned her teaching certificate at Louisiana State University.

The field of medicine beckoned, and Gary was accepted into medical school at LSU in New Orleans. Kelly was born in 1969 and Janice worked full­time to make ends meet. The young family moved to Houston where Gary started his residency at Baylor. Following a complicated pregnancy, Matt was born in 1972. Gary was working long hours moonlighting and at one point the family was merely $100 away from being completely broke.

The family moved to New Orleans where Gary completed his dermatology specialization. Their final move in 1979 was to Beaumont where Gary opened a dermatology practice in which Janice worked as office manager for many years and where they raised their children, who were an unending source of joy to their parents. Kelly and Matt graduated from university, married, and most importantly, produced five much loved and cherished grandchildren who were utterly doted upon by their adoring grandmother.

A treasured wife, mother, and grandmother, Janice lives on in our hearts for the rest of our days and eternally with her precious Savior, Jesus.

Three themes wove themselves throughout Janice's life­ faith, family, and friends. These were the things she held most dear and were always her top priority.

Faith

We know beyond a shadow of doubt that Janice is supremely joyful now and for eternity, free from all pain and sorrow and is being completely loved and embraced by her Lord

Jesus Christ. This knowledge bouys the hearts of her loved ones left behind.

Janice wrote down memories of her childhood a few years ago, and remembered being taken to church from infancy on. There were no age appropriate Sunday school classes then, so children were expected to sit quietly in the pew with their parents. She recalled that her mother made 'babies in a cradle' out of a handkerchief for her to play with while the pastor preached all too­ lengthy sermons, or so Janice thought.

Reliance on the Good Lord's providence was a lesson Janice learned early in life. During the alter call at church one evening, a man rushed in to tell Janice's father that his barn had been struck by lightning and was burning to the ground. Her parents were in danger of losing their livelihood and would have no way to care for their growing family. Despite the tremendous uninsured loss, there was much to be thankful for and God's care was evident throughout the ordeal. The horses and cows were found in a pasture nearby and the hogs were seen running along the fence line early the next morning. Neighboring farmers from all around offered to help and quite soon a new barn had been raised. A small, leather-bound Bible was an Easter gift from her mother one year, and it sits on Janice's desk even now.

A drunk driver struck the family in a head-on collision, including Janice, Gary, the children, and her parents, in Nevada, Missouri, near Christmastime in 1977. For many years afterward Janice suffered debilitating migraine headaches. After much prayer and Bible study, Janice realized she had never forgiven the driver of the other vehicle. She prayed a heart­felt prayer and truly let go of her anger and resentment toward the man and from that point on she never suffered another migraine. She told that story over and over again as an integral part of her personal faith journey, as a witness of Jesus' power to heal, and the crucial need to forgive no matter the wrong.

Friends

Growing up on a farm in the country was lonely for a young girl, and Janice was always sorry when her family moved to different parcels of land and she had to leave school friends behind. She made up games to play with imaginary friends at home and she said she won every time!

Friendships were precious to Janice, perhaps because she had so few as a child, and she maintained so many over the course of her life. Just the week before Janice passed; she and Gary had gone on vacation in Utah with old friends Nick and Sharon Nickelson, whom they first met in Baton Rouge in 1964.

Ruth Haverkost, a college roommate, once saved Janice from drowning, and she retold the story many times over her life, always reiterating how grateful she was to Ruth for coming to her rescue.

For Janice, friendship was a perfect expression of her faith.  She saw the sacredness in life.  In the things she made with her hands, in the meals she prepared for her family, in the plants she placed so lovingly in her garden, she saw wholeness, holiness, eternal significance. She studied her Bible, read devotional material, and prayed, because that was what she’d been taught to do, and also because that was who she was. 

Janice believed in regular gathering with her faith community, for fellowship and worship.  She enjoyed that stability.  At the same time, she wanted to grow.  She always worked to know more.  Janice wanted to know more about the Bible, more about her faith tradition, more of what the great spiritual masters had written.  She wanted to study more, learn more, think deeply, and decide what exactly her faith was asking her to do, and be. 

Janice was drawn to participate in Disciple Bible Study, the next year to lead Disciple Bible Study.  She went on a Walk to Emmaus, and she obeyed what she saw as a divine imperative to start an intercessory prayer ministry. All in the space of a year!  What humble, holy energy she had. 

In teaching Disciple, she was teamed with a woman who became her lifelong friend. For thirty-four weeks that year, she shared the teaching task with her new friend, who soon became not just friend and colleague but spiritual sister.  Not only did they teach, but they spent long hours in prayerfully reviewing each class, and planning for the next.  During that year of teaching they spied another woman, one of their students, who seemed to have a bright spirit and an inquiring mind.  They drew her into their circle.  Thus began twenty years of the Emmaus sisterhood of three.

What began as a weekly gathering for spiritual accountability evolved into a deep sharing of three lives. As joys and sorrows came along—weddings of children, births of grandchildren, deaths both sudden and lingering, the three women stuck together, rejoicing in the good times, sorrowing in the bad.  Janice was so very intentional about nurturing this circle of three.  They met in her home for years, usually around a delicious meal she prepared. 

Hours and hours they spent together, talking, rejoicing in the resonance they had for each other, in the divine imperative they all felt to keep searching, keep praying, and above all, to stay together.  Their motto was from Ecclesiastes:  “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

They traveled together, laughed together, cried together.  There would be separations of distance and periods of time. They were not the type to be on the phone with each other all day.  They went about their individual lives. But they always knew where each of the others was in the world, and it was Janice who worked the motherly/sisterly magic of gathering them back together. Theirs was a community, a holy conversation, and that was important to her. 

One example:  She was the last of the three to submit to the technology of email.  She had done just fine without it, thank you very much. But her two friends got email accounts, and emailed each other, and then they started in on her:  “Janice, just think how great it would be if we could all three email each other!”  Well, she resisted.  But one day when they gathered for lunch, she pulled out two presents, one for each friend.  They opened the presents. In each was a golden, hinged box, in the shape of a fortune cookie.  With shining eyes she watched as her wondering friends opened their boxes.  In each box was a strip of paper.  On the paper was written…her brand new email address. 

For the love of this little community of three, she had crossed a technological boundary, and then marked that sacred happening by lifting it up in a tangible, delightful, creative, Janice-way. 

And so, faith and friendship wove together in Janice Vaughn.  Like the One she worshipped, she put prodigious energy and thought into creating moments of beauty and warmth and delight.  For the love of God, for the love of her friends.  The glory of God is a person fully alive.  Janice was such a person.  Her radiance lives on in the hearts of her friends.

Family

Photographs of family paper the walls and vie for space on every flat surface in Janice's home, a testament to how loved and valued each person was to her. The loss of her parents and then her younger brother was a crushing blow to Janice and not a day went by that she didn't think of each of them. How lovely to know that they are all reunited once again!

Once when Janice's brother, seven years her junior was a new­born and she became weary of his crying, she asked her mother to never bring home a baby this little again, and that upset her mother so! Janice sometimes resented having to babysit her brother while her mother did chores, but she adored him and they maintained a close relationship throughout their lives. His death when he was 59 and she 66 was a source of tremendous sorrow for her, and she often told how she felt he spoke to her and reassured her after his passing in the form of a redbird. She collected pictures and stories ever after of redbirds as a tangible reminder of her brother.

Janice was keenly interested in genealogy, and saved countless letters, newspaper articles, photographs, and other family memorabilia in order to preserve the memory of ancestors who preceded her and to pass along a sense of family belonging to the younger generations. She mourned the fact that her maternal grandmother passed away before she was born, and wished thousands of times over the course of her life that she could have known her. How joyous it is to know that they are acquainted now!

A loving and caring mother, Janice poured herself into the lives of her children, throwing birthday parties, shuttling them to and from school and practices, attending sporting events of every description, helping with homework, and doing all of the things that mothers do that go completely unrecognized and unappreciated by their children until they are parents themselves.

The reward for all of that selfless exertion over the years is grandchildren! Five young people could not be more loved than Reagan, Rory, Rusten, Wyatt, and Madilyn were. Janice spoke of them endlessly and delighted in everything they did. Our prayer is that they will someday understand how fully and unconditionally they were loved by their grandmother.

Our meager efforts do not do justice to the beautiful soul that is Janice. Her thoughtfulness and concern touched countless others, and we, the most fortunate family and friends to be loved by her, are only beginning to realize the magnitude of the void her departing this earth leaves behind. She has certainly heard the blessed words, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and share your Master's happiness."

­Authored by Gary Vaughn, Kelly Niles, and Phoebe Dishman

Janice is survived by her husband, Dr. Gary Vaughn, of Beaumont; daughter, Kelly Vaughn Niles and her husband, Tony, of Houston; son, Matt Edward Vaughn, and his wife, Samantha, of Springfield, Missouri; and grandchildren, Reagan Niles, Rory Niles, Rusten Niles, Wyatt Vaughn, and Madilyn Vaughn.

She is preceded in death by her brother, Marvin Allen “Butch” Cummings.

A gathering of Mrs. Vaughn’s family and friends will be from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m., Wednesday, June 8, 2016, at Broussard’s, 1605 North Major Drive, Beaumont. Her funeral service will be 10:00 a.m., Thursday, June 9, 2016, at Trinity United Methodist Church, 3430 Harrison Avenue, Beaumont. A private family committal will be held at Broussard’s Crematorium, Beaumont.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Trinity United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 5247, Beaumont, Texas 77726 or to an organization of one’s choice.