Obituary Details

Janet Joanne Richardson

(03/08/1933 - 03/21/2021)
Courtesy of The Lusk Herald, 04/14/2021

Janet Joanne Richardson passed from this life on Easter evening, March 21, in Aurora, Colo., where she had lived in recent years. She had been under hospice care and unresponsive for a week or two. A short graveside service was held in Manville on April 2.

She was the only child of Emma Faye Howard Richardson of Manville, and the first grandchild of Harry and Neletta Howard. Mr. Howard was a jeweler and watch repairman in Manville. Neletta Howard was owner/operator of a general store there as well as the postmistress until she retired at age 75.

Janet was much loved. Janet’s maiden name was Richardson, but also her surname from her second marriage, to a certain Bill Richardson of Wichita Falls, Texas, where she lived for many years. When she was 17, she married Jerry Metcalf of Hartville. To them was born a male child who died of lung collapse. That was her only child.

She attended grade school in Manville but moved to Lingle for her high school years.

Janet was a nice-looking girl and woman who was blessed with a fine sense of humor, fine conversational ability, a great facility in Gregg Shorthand (partially learned in Lingle high school but self-developed and well-practiced) and also in speed-typewriting. By herself, she learned artistic drawing skills suitable for design of women’s fashions; and she demonstrated great facility in reading/performing piano music. She worked many “temp jobs” in the Denver area as a key-punch billing clerk or operator.

She loved languages and took every opportunity to learn. She walked and hitch-hiked to Mexico City as a teenager, after the death of her child, living there for some months.

“It was easy,” she said. “I had to come back to keep my U.S. citizenship.”

She lived an often-solitary life, but never lost the capacity for dignified merriment. She remained loyal to the Jehovah’s Witness congregation. She was sociable, friendly and loyal, but very independent and rarely returned to Wyoming. Her life, like most of ours, was not easy but she thoroughly enjoyed it and loved the Wyoming plains. She also loved cats. Her greatest regret in her later years was not being able to have a cat in her assisted living home.

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Related/Linked Records

Record Type Name
Obituary Richardson, Emma (11/21/1908 - 09/22/1993) View Record
Obituary Howard, Harry (12/31/1873 - 08/26/1964) View Record
Obituary Howard, Neletta (12/14/1874 - 03/27/1970) View Record