Janice Austin

AUSTIN, COE, VAUGHAN, SIDDENS, GRAY, ROBERTS, HOFMEISTER, HILL, LARIMER, DODD, HARPER, ECKELS, ELSON, BRUSTO

Posted By: Ruth McDowell (email)
Date: 1/26/2013 at 15:01:52

Obituaries Powers Funeral Home

Janice Austin, 91, of Afton, died Friday, March 11, 2011, at the Afton Care Center. Services will be 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 15, 2011, at the Powers Funeral Home at 612 N. Dodge St. in Afton. Pastor Jim Morris will officiate. Burial will be in the Greenlawn Cemetery in Afton. Open visitation will be from 2 to 8 p.m. Monday, with family receiving friends from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Powers Funeral Home in Afton. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Afton Community Center project. Online condolences can be made under the obituary category at www.powersfh.com.

Catherine Janice (Coe) Austin, daughter of Lewis Lester Coe and Katherine Lydia Byrd (Vaughan) Coe was born February 8, 1920, in Waukee, Iowa. When Janice was nine months old, her family moved to Parkersburg, West Virginia, her mother’s hometown. When she was nine years old they moved back to Iowa. They first settled in Earlham and then moved to rural Madison County, near Peru. Janice graduated from Winterset High School in 1938. She was united in marriage to Forrest Marion Austin on October 23, 1938, in the United Methodist Church Parsonage in Winterset. Janice was a homemaker, a mother, and kept the books for Forrest at the salvage yard until 1965. She later worked with Forrest in his construction business. Janice and Forrest farmed until 1987, when they moved back to town in Afton and retired. Janice loved to read, work with her flowers and her garden, and spend time with her grandchildren.

For 59 years Janice was Forrest’s right hand, mother of his nine children—feeding them, sewing for the six girls, and turning every one of the nine into readers—disciplinarian, gardener and chicken tender, keeper of the finances, holder of his boards, rememberer of his measurements, untangler of his power cords, always handing him the right tool before he knew he needed it.

Janice is survived by three sons, Marion Austin, Gary (wife Alice) Austin and Alan (wife Kathy) Austin, all of Afton; five daughters, Kathryn (husband Gary Lee) Siddens of Afton, Beth Gray of Winterset, Virginia Roberts of Ozark, Mo., Nancy (husband Lanny) Hofmeister of Creston and Mary (husband Wayne) Hill of Afton; a son-in-law, Dennis Larimer of Apple Valley, Minn.; twenty-two grandchildren; thirty-seven great-grandchildren; two great-great-grandsons; a brother, Carroll F. Coe of Fairbanks, Alaska; a sister-in-law, Frieda Dodd of State Center; and a brother-in-law, Dana Harper of Lorimor.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Forrest; a daughter, Linda Larimer; three sons-in-law, Chuck Gray, Dick Roberts and Stephen Eckels; granddaughter, Kathryn Lanee Austin; three brothers, Charles Coe and infants John Roberts Coe and David Irvin Coe; and two sisters, Corinne Elson and Martha Brusto.