 Janette
was born and raised in Colorado, an only daughter with five
brothers. She is a certified elementary teacher now homeschooling
Kyle and Maura. She has taught other homeschoolers and tutored
elementary children after school in her home for thirteen years
before their trip. She is the founder of the homeschooling group,
The Mountain Area Homeschoolers, and for four years, had written
its bimonthly newsletter packed with a wide variety of field
trips, classes, and other opportunities available to homeschoolers
in the Evergreen and surrounding areas. She was also the primary
caretaker of Dan's 78 year old mother, Grandma Bonnie, who had
lived with them for over ten years until June 2003 when she
passed away. Bonnie was a longtime stroke victim who was invalid.
The family is took Bonnie with them as they traveled around
the country in the first eight months of their trip in 2002
and 2003. " Bonnie was such an important part of our family
we couldn't imagine not taking her with us."
Playing
piano as a child, Janette picked up the violin with Kyle when
he was seven. But watching how quickly and naturally Kyle
was becoming proficient on the fiddle and watching Maura doing
the same thing, Janette realized that Kyle and Maura would
be all the fiddlers the family band would need. Dan suggested
that Janette take up the bass. After learning bass basics
(yuck, yuck) on a rented upright, Janette bought a Taylor
acoustic/electric and has played that since. "More than
anything, my learning bass really got the family band going.
It really fills out the sound and it's fun to play."
Janette still likes to play the fiddle and has learned a bit
of mandolin. She owns a beautiful 1922 Gibson A-2 and plans
to play lots of fiddle and mandolin on the family's road travels.
She now owns a beautiful 1939 Kay Upright Bass, and will be
playing it when room allows!
Janette is the business manager (sans cigar)
of the band and takes care of the bookings, web page design,
and CD distribution. "Helpful ideas always accepted!"
She has begun to write a book about the families adventures
on the road, inspired by her great-grandmother, and Laura
Joplin, a friend and writer. An absolute "whirling dervish,"
Janette is always involved with gangs of projects and activities
unfolding at all times. She loves homeschooling Kyle and Maura,
hiking, biking, knitting, sewing,scrapbooking, reading, making
games for her students, teaching sign language as well as
participating in the deaf community, and learning new songs
on the bass, mandolin and fiddle. "I love working with
kids and am so fortunate to be able to share so much time
with my own."
Edyth E. Spriggs, Janette's great-grandmother,
was the mother of nine children, and an author. Edyth wrote
a book, Legacy of Love, about her life including a trip, at
fourteen, from the mining town of Bonanza, Colorado in 1902,
to Oregon in a covered wagon. Janette's mother, Claudia, active
in local Democratic politics is also an historian as well
as a genealogist who loves to write. Janette keeps a journal
along the way as she and her family traverse the United States
in a motorhome exactly one-hundred years after her great-grandmother,
Edyth, did in a covered wagon.
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