Meeting Jan

It took me years to learn that Jan was actually Janice Ann. She always preferred "Jan". I first met her in 1991 at the Names Project office in DC at 16th and K where I was the volunteer Volunteer Coordinator and where she came to contribute her sewing skills to people making panels for the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt. She was a strong, no-nonsense personality -- which immediately drew me to her. In those days she drank and smoked, drawing the ire of Bonnie and Mireille, the self-proclaimed mavens of Names Project. Jan pitched right in helping anyone who needed help, choosing fabric,getting things measured, starting them on stitching. Whatever needed doing. She was a trip and a trip that I willingly took for 20 years.