Janice Franklin Sloan, 85, of Danville, died on Jan. 15, 2022, surrounded by her loving family.
Visitation for Danville area friends will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 19, at the Sunset Funeral Home and Cremation Center in Danville. Visitation for Morrisonville area friends will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 21, at the Perfetti-Assalley Funeral Home in Morrisonville.
Funeral Mass will be held on Saturday, Jan. 22, at St. Maurice Catholic Church in Morrisonville with the Rev. John C. Burnette as celebrant. Interment will follow mass at St. Maurice Catholic Cemetery in Morrisonville.
Mrs. Sloan was born Jan. 2, 1937, in Taylorville, to Lowell and Ina Mae (Deal) Franklin, and was raised on the family farm. As a young girl, she attended Cottonwood Grade School, a one-room country school near Morrisonville, and later Morrisonville High School, graduating in 1954. After high school, she attended the University of Illinois for a year, taking courses in home economics. She later worked for Gilbert Large Chevrolet in Taylorville.
At 20, she became engaged to her high school sweetheart, James, who was enlisted in the Marine Corps and stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Clemente, CA. After a four-month engagement, the couple were married at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in San Clemente on April 20, 1957. For the rest of her life, Janice reminisced about their wonderful “extended honeymoon” in California.
After her husband was honorably discharged from the Marines a few years later, the couple moved to Springfield, where they welcomed their first four children. After settling permanently in Danville in 1966, the couple had two more children.
While her husband started his own insurance adjustment business, Mrs. Sloan worked tirelessly to raise their children, four of whom were born before her 25th birthday. She spent 53 years of her life in Danville, devoting all of her time to her husband and family.
She and her husband were longtime parishioners of St. Paul’s Catholic Church, where she found profound faith in the church, prompting her conversion to Catholicism in 1970. At 80, she discovered a newfound love of exercise, and took up gym workouts and daily, six-mile walks. Throughout her life, she remained in active communication with all of her children and grandchildren as they traveled and found homes in far-flung places.
Mrs. Sloan will be remembered by those who loved her for her love of learning and literature, her wide knowledge of plants and flowers, her fondness for Colorado blue skies and purple mountains, her sharp wit and sense of humor, her tenacity, her love of babies and small children and her compassion.
She is survived by her husband of sixty-four years, James Joseph (“JJ”) Sloan, and by their six children, Suzanne (Morey-Sloan); Colleen (Jones), Michael, Gregory, Thomas, and Patricia; three sisters, Barbara Franklin and Phyllis Bloome, both of Morrisonville, and Kay Franklin, of Estes Park, CO; eight grandchildren, Meredith, Melissa, Siobhan, Rhiannon, Lukas, Mathilde, Ash and Carolina; and one great-grandchild, Sloan.
Memorials may be designated to Morrisonville High School, 204 N. Perrine St., Morrisonville, IL 62546, or St. Maurice Catholic Church, 706 SE 4th St., Morrisonville, IL 62546.
Visit www.assalleyfuneralhomes.com to share memories of Mrs. Sloan or to offer condolences to her family.
