Janice Vaughn Turner
Our mother and Mema passed away on Wednesday, November 11, 2020, at Hendrick Hospice Care in Abilene at age 100, having fought the good fight and laying it all down peacefully. Her funeral will be a graveside service beginning at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 18, 2020, at the Coleman Cemetery in Coleman, Texas. A visitation will be held at Melton-Kitchens Funeral Home in Breckenridge from 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 17, 2020. The graveside service will be led by Pastor Richard Darden of Abilene and her son-in-law, Gary Skaggs.
Janice was born in 1920 in Coleman County to Walter and lrene Vaughn and grew up in the Watts Creek community. She married J.W. “Dub” Turner in Coleman in 1937 and they struggled through the last of the Great Depression, once living in a tent in the Ozona oil fields until the tent burned down. Dub found work in Houston and moved her and their baby there to live in rented rooms. Another baby was born, and they all moved back to Coleman when he was drafted into the Army. They lived mainly in Coleman after the war, where two more babies were born and Dub went into the oil field trucking business in the 1950s. In 1957, they moved their business to Abilene and then in 1967 to Breckenridge, where they lived over 40 years on Tanglewood lsland at Hubbard Creek Lake.
Jan learned to play bridge in Abilene from Mrs. Lillius and became a champ at the game. She was known in Breckenridge as the Queen of No Trump and enjoyed many hours of playing with her bridge clubs. She continued to play right up to the end of her life.
She was also a master canner of anything Dub grew in his huge garden and hated to see him bring in another bucket of cucumbers! Her kosher dill pickles and beets were renown, and there are people in Breckenridge who will remember them. She retired from the canning business when Dub died in 2005. She continued to live alone at the lake until she was 96, when all agreed she didn’t need to be alone. Her dear friend Willie Malone looked in on her in those last years at the lake and we thank her for that. At that time, Jan moved to Abilene to live with her oldest daughter and husband, Ann and Clyde Berkley. She had a hard time adjusting to “assisted living” and once said, “All this change wouldn’t be so hard if I didn’t have my right mind.” She kept her home at the lake and would go back for a week or so when her daughter and husband, Linda and Gary Skaggs, would come from Oklahoma. She also had visits from her son and wife, John and Marcia Turner, and from her daughter and now deceased husband, Freddie and Jim Holybee. Her family worked together to make this time in her life as good as it could be. She went from Ann’s home to hospice care just a few weeks ago. We want to thank Dr. Templeton, the nurses, and staff at Hendrick Hospice Care for the tender loving care they lavished on her in her final days.
Besides her four children and spouses, Jan left eight devoted grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter. About 4O came together to celebrate her 97th birthday and then over 60 attended her 100th birthday party in Breckenridge in February. As age began to slow her down, her comment was, “It ought to be against the law to be 100!”
Jan was not a member of any church but was raised in a Baptist home. At age 92 she put her faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. She is at rest today in Him.
