Janet Ethel McDonald O'Keeffe

May 19, 1940 - September 12, 2024

My sister Jan was born on May 19, 1940, at Nellies farm near St. Joseph, Berrien County, Michigan. She was the second oldest of the six daughters of Floyd Elmer McDonald and Margaret Alida Arntz. Our parents were both native North Dakotans. Floyd was born in Gardner, and Margaret in Burnstad. Shortly after their marriage in 1936, the young couple moved to Michigan with Margaret's parents, hoping to find work in the shops of Benton Harbor.

Their first child, Ruth, was born in Benton Harbor in 1937. When Jan was born, the family was living in a converted fruit shed with dirt floors.

World War II broke out in 1941, which meant lots of work for Floyd in the machine shops around Benton Harbor — as much as 10-12 hours a day, six or seven days a week. The stress took its toll, and Floyd suffered a series of nervous breakdowns, which cleaned out their savings.

Frances was born in 1942, and Evelyn followed in 1945. Floyd fell ill again, and his doctor advised him to get away from the shops.

The family moved back to North Dakota in 1948 when daughter Susan was two years old. Initially settling in Grandin, the McDonalds tried raising chickens until they lost most of the money from the sale of their house in Benton Harbor. But Jan found her spiritual home in the Great Plains:

1948 started a whole new life for me. We moved to North Dakota. The Plains have always been the home for my soul. I love the sky laying right down on the ground in front of me. I loved being in a place where I didn't have to look up to see the sky. The trees used to make me car sick. As an adult, I spent some time in the mountains and some time in the forest and each time I got claustrophobia. One fall, in Pennsylvania, I couldn't tell what it was like outside for two weeks; I just couldn't get a decent look at the sky.

"Memories from My Childhood", by Janet McDonald O'Keeffe

In the winter of 1948-49, Floyd's brother Howard mortgaged his farm equipment so Floyd and Margaret could buy a quarter section (the Murdoff farm) near Gardner.

Winters were harsh, and during the worst storms, blowing snow would block the windows, so they couldnt tell if it was day or night. The spring thaw turned the thick black "gumbo" to super glue, stopping cars and even chickens in their tracks.

They also had a heavy debt load, and not enough income from farming to support a family of eight. In 1950, they sold the land in Gardner to spend a disastrous year on a dairy farm in Lastrup, Minnesota.

They returned to North Dakota in the fall of 1951, where Floyd farmed rented land and Margaret worked in a biscuit factory.

On a brutally cold day in the winter of 1952, Jan froze her legs walking home from school. Our parents rushed her to a hospital in Hillsboro. When they returned home, they discovered the furnace had broken down and filled the house with soot. Meanwhile, Frankie had suffered a ruptured appendix. Since their car was out of gas, Floyd borrowed Uncle Howard's car and drove Frankie to the hospital in Fargo in the middle of the night. Our mother would later describe it as the worst week of her life.

In 1952, our parents bought 160 acres of land without buildings near Argusville. The entire family became the live-in maintenance crew at a Catholic High School in Fargo, where I was born in 1953.

c 1956 family portrait. Left to right: Frankie, Sue, Evy, me, Jan Ruth and Ray Litke.

I was five years old when my friend Debbie Shecker and I were struck by a drunk driver while crossing the street on our way to buy ice cream. I ended up with a concussion and was hospitalized for several days. Jan was returning from Evy and Sue's confirmation when she found me on the street, covered in blood, only recognizing me by my white cowboy boots.

In 1959 Jan caught sight of a handsome young man in 1957 Ford Fairlane. She would later say that all she saw was the top of his face, reflected in the rearview mirror, but she knew he was the man she would marry. She tossed a tennis ball into the back of the car to attract the attention of Jim O'Keeffe, an engineering student at NDSU. Jan and Jim were married on October 22, 1960, at St. Mary's Cathedral in Fargo.

To me, Jan was a celebrity. Tall, with jet black hair, green eyes and an hourglass figure, she was always perfectly groomed and fashionably dressed. She had Jackie-Kennedy-level style and class.

She and Jim led what seemed like a charmed life. He succeeded wildly in his engineering career, moving from California to Arizona before finally settling in Nebraska in 1967.

I remember visiting her at her home in Hastings, Nebraska. It was impeccable! There were plastic covers on the living room furniture and no one was allowed to sit there. Jan had a white area rug, and I was shocked to see her get down on her hands and knees to straighten the fringes on the rug!

Sue, me, Jan and Ruth, at a family reunion in Frazee, Minnesota, in 1972.

But Jan was already suffering with rheumatoid arthritis, and as the years passed, the disease took its toll. I remember wondering if Jan would live past thirty, since by her mid 20s she was already severely crippled.

Jan became a towering figure in my life during a family reunion in Minnesota in August, 1976, in honor of my father's 65th birthday and my parents' 40th anniversary.

I was struggling to complete my master's thesis, and coming to terms with the fact that even if I did, I was never going to find a job in my field. My partner had recently lost his job, and when our next door neighbor committed suicide, I fell into a deep depression.

I couldn't turn to my family for financial or emotional support. According to my sister Ruth, I was only going to college to avoid getting a job and living in the "real world". My sister Sue echoed those sentiments, accusing me of trying to "hole up in academia," and suggesting that my goal of becoming a college history professor was a sign of "deep psychological maladjustment".

In our family, there was never quite enough to go around — food, clothing, personal space, love. Especially love. And there was a constant tug-of-war over what little was available.

My sisters had invited some 80 people to the reunion in Frazee, Minnesota, and tensions were running high as we rushed to prepare all the food and put the house in order. When Frankie and Sue got in a fight over how I was supposed to slice the hamburger buns, I dropped everything and ran.

I was sitting beside the road, crying onto the dry grass, when passing headlights revealed a tall figure walking slowly toward me. It was Jan, hobbling all the way out from the house to comfort me. She said her prayer group in Omaha was praying that she would make it through these two days, and that it was always like this when the family got together — everyone at each other's throats — and I shouldn't expect it to be any other way. She said there wasn't much love in our family, and I would have to look elsewhere for that.

Her words were a total revelation to me. I stopped expecting my family to be "The Waltons", and got on with my life.

One of my best memories of Jan was when she visited me in Vermont in April, 1979. She had accompanied Jim on a business trip in Boston. I was in Natick, Massachusetts, for the New England Folk Festival. I had hitched a ride down, and Jan joined me for the return trip to Vermont, sitting on the floor in the back of a panel van. In Montpelier, we rented a car and I took her to some of my favorite places. Accustomed to western states, Jan was shocked that we could cover the entire map of Vermont in a couple of hours!

Although Jan never went to college, she was extremely well-read. She's the only person I ever knew who read the entirety of "War and Peace" while brushing her teeth! With my mother's smarts and my father's irrepressible sociability, she could converse with anyone, on any topic. And she had the most amazing deadpan sense of humor!

Bathing Beauties at our father's 80th birthday celebration in Daytona Beach, Florida, 1991.

At a family reunion in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1991, Jan wondered out loud if anyone had tipped the workmen who had come to fix the door. And Susie said, "No, but I let them look down my front!" "I'm the sister who has to tip," Jan mused.

Reel ahead a decade or so. In 1994, Jan and Jim were operating a successful business brokerage in Kansas City. I was married to Jaromir Born, a Czech immigrant. We lived in Montréal, and I was working as graphic designer for a Marion Merrell Dow. Jan and Jim invited me to accompany them on a trip to Moab after a visit to my company's headquarters in Kansas City. It was during that trip that I fell madly, hopelessly in love with the Southwest.

By then the province of Québec was in the throes of another referendum. Companies left the province in droves rather than risk ending up with their headquarters in an independent Québec. The unemployment rate was more than 20%, and my company began a series of reductions in force. We began making plans to leave Canada and return to the United States.

With a visa secured and the house sold, we moved to Kansas City in November, 1996. Before leaving town, we placed a quick call to my parents to let them know we were on our way. My sister Sue answered the phone, and I could hear my other sisters talking in the background. Unbeknowst to me, all five sisters were in Florida, helping my parents pack their belongings for a move to ... Kansas City. Instead of being a brief stopover on the way to the Southwest, Kansas City would be my home for five years, until both parents passed away.

On the plus side, we both easily found work in Kansas City, and the years I spent there gave me precious time with my favorite sister. Several times a month, the phone would ring on Sunday morning, and it was Jan announcing "dawn patrol", which meant we were getting together for breakfast on the terrace at our favorite café in Overland Park. We spent many happy hours at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and trying to keep my mother entertained with meals out and tours of the countryside.

It was Jan who drove me to appointments before and after my sinus surgery in 1998. Jan who introduced me to Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner. Jan who hosted all the holiday gatherings. Jan who picked me up when my car wouldn't start, narrowly avoiding a catastrophic flood that swept through Kansas City that same year.

Our father's memorial service at Little Sisters in Kansas City.

Floyd MacDonald passed away on May 25, 1997, and Margaret on July 30, 2000. Jan and Jim moved to Hastings, Nebraska, and I continued my voyage to the Southwest, relocating to Tucson, Arizona, in February, 2001.

Jan and Jim often spent time in Scottsdale during the winter, so we got together at least once a year. They came to my rescue, for the second time, in 2004, when I lost my job just after ending a long-term relationship. They gave me $3000 — ostensibly from my parents' estate — which was enough to tide me over until I ofound another job, and avoided losing my house.

Family Reunion in Buena Vista, Colorado, 2008

The reunion in Albuquerque in November, 2003, was the last time all six sisters would be together. My sister Sue died of cancer on August 24, 2004. Frankie died suddenly in May, 2016, of complications from diabetes. Frankie and Jan were very close, and it was a terrible shock for her. A month later Jim O'Keeffe passed away after a years-long battle with Parkinson's disease.

While preparing to move into assisted living, Jan was packing some items from a large tool chest. Multiple drawers slid open and the chest tipped over, causing Jan to lose her balance, strike her head on the garage floor, and suffer a traumatic brain injury.

The TBI caused memory loss, and Jan began a slow decline. It became extremely challenging to exchange emails, letters, or even talk on the phone. Carole O'Keeffe, Jan's daughter-in-law, did her best to help us stay in touch, but the loss of Jan's presence in my life left a big, gaping hole that will never be filled.

Jan passed away peacefully from natural causes on September 12, 2024.

My last visit with Jan in Hastings, Nebraska, in September, 2016.