Janice Ann Richards, 77, of Laurel, DE was called home to the Lord on Sunday, February 25, 2024. Born in Fort Collins, CO on September 5, 1946, she was the daughter of the late Joseph and Hazel Poston Haas.

Mrs. Richards retired as a supervisor for a cleaning company. A true animal lover, she enjoyed watching birds, raising her chickens and ducks. Janice was a warrior for the Lord, always telling her husband to watch his step. She lived a life full of love and happiness, always looking to make someone's day a little brighter.

She regularly prayed for those she cared so much for and attended church regularly on Sunday even if it was on TV. Her faith carried her through many trials on this earth and she usually won out over most of them. She loved all animals especially her many dogs, Dutch, Butch, Peachy, Dusty, Brandy, Casey and Candy. Casey was going to be a new career, breeding schnauzers for show, until she had 7 puppies all in one litter and the care she gave them became overwhelming.

We always checked the goose nest in the pond at 40 Richards and would usually find one egg ,that didn't hatch. One year we cracked it, and it held a live gosling with broken hips and she fed and cared for it until it got its neck stuck in a stump and broke its neck. Another she saved was raised until she returned it to the rest of the flock, took a little push to get the goose to take the new gosling. She raised chickens from peeps in the kitchen and put them in the chicken house for some eggs and hatched some duck eggs under them, it was a sight watching that hen go berserk when the baby ducks took to the water in the pond.

She loved the beautiful sunsets behind Lannie's house, there were many spectacular super colorful ones through the years. Her TV consisted mostly of watching dead people, Matlock, Perry Mason, Andy Griffith, Monk, or Columbo, shows many don't remember. She could pick up a cookbook and read it like a novel, she never saw a cookbook she could resist, buying them often. She was an excellent cook as evidenced by Bill's oversized stomach. She would follow a recipe to the tee, often making Bill a little peeved when having to track an odd ball ingredient down at several stores. She loved her children, grandkids, and great grandkids.

She loved her Louisiana roots and will always remember Alice Fay's and Junior's 2nd cousins reunion, quite the time. She wore many hats in her life, motel cleaner, nurses aid in Fairplay and Newark, J-BAR-J co-owner, homemaker, cleaning supervisor at Bank of New York and mostly taking care of her husband. She could sit for hours on her kindle and go through Lord knows how many recipes, occasionally jotting one down for the future. Her latest was an eggnog cake, which she said had to be made only with Pennsylvania Dutch eggnog, it was delicious, everyone who tried it loved it. She cooked many a super chicken fried elk steak and lots of delicious pot roasts that Bill will attest to.

She never had a bona fide vacation due to Bill not having the time off. When we owned the bar during the slow period in January we would take off for three days and four nights to lost wages with Virg and Alma Park. It was cheap in those days, 165 bucks for the flight and hotel and freebees at the small casinos, just take some gambling money. In the East we would take off in the fall for the Outer Banks for a week with the Waggamans, the Truitts , the Parks, the Davids and KittyLou. Never had a cruise, Mexico, or any kind of a paid vacation, but she never complained.

She did enjoy going to Delaware Park for a little slot action and later Harrington downstate where she had her big hit on a slot machine, 4130.61 on 75 cents, she was pretty excited about that. She had lots of fun with her good friends Maureen and Bob Porter on a variety of gambling trips, they wouldn't plan a trip anywhere unless there was a casino or racetrack on the way.

Lost Maureen February 7, 2022, hit Jan hard, she thought she would be the first to go. That's been two years to the day Jan started hospice care.

She lived a pretty care free life until 2015 when she went in for a heart catheterization to determine why her heartbeat was so fast. They set a balloon and went to set a stent and the wire broke. They had to do open heart surgery and strip a vein out of her leg for the repair. After a long stint in Select Specialty (a bad place for healing) in Wilmington, she was finally transferred to Bryn Mar in Pa. There she got real rehabilitation and was finally discharged and came home. After some home rehab she was her old self, a real firecracker.

Her heart problems were still there and in 2020 she had to have an aorta valve replacement and as was her standard she recovered quickly and was her old self. After moving from 40 Richards Lane to Lannie's house in Laurel she began having bouts of congestive heart failure and with a new cardiologist she had a pacemaker, defibrillator implanted which improved her heart function.

Winter of 2023 she began having more spells and ended up in the hospital January 6th , left there after a week and went to Encompass rehab in Salisbury. Had just one day to get out of rehab and had another spell, back to the hospital for a few days and back to rehab and another spell and that landed her in ER for four hours and back to rehab. She did really well in rehab and was supposed to get out on Saturday morning and they came and said they were keeping her till Monday and she had the last spell on Sunday, back to the hospital.

She has fought and won so many battles with her heart failure it was really disheartening to hear that her kidneys were failing due to the weakness of her heart. She had followed a strict low sodium diet for years to keep her kidneys in check. It was a constant battle between the kidney doc and the cardiologist, one said drink more water and the other said drink less water. Seems this was one battle that our warrior couldn't win. Dialysis was a possibility, but she had said that she didn't want that and with her mental condition would not have been a good quality of life with continued dialysis. So she faced the finality of life at home with Bill and the Lord. The Lord won out and gained a beautiful angel. I like to think maybe Helen came and told Jan it was time to come home, Jan said she saw Helen sitting in a chair a couple of days before.

Survivors include her loving husband of 50 years, Francis Richards, Jr.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her sister, Helen Roit.

Funeral service will be held 1 PM, Saturday, March 2, 2024 at Hicks Home for Funerals, 103 W. Stockton Street, Elkton, MD 21921 with visitation beginning at 12 PM. Interment will be 2 PM, Monday, March 4, 2024 in Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Sussex, DE.