Janice “Jan” O'Leary
October 5th, 1943 - February 18th, 2025
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Jan's Obituary
Jan O’Leary died from complications from an intestinal infection and other ailments in Naples, Florida on February 18, 2025, surrounded by her sons. She was 81 years old.
Jan was born on October 5, 1943, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the first of three siblings, to Wayne Arthur and Phyllis Manson. Her father was in the army at the time and was stationed near Cincinnati. After the war, Jan moved to Detroit, where her parents had been living, and where she grew up, on the city’s east side. She attended Cass Tech in its heyday, graduating in 1961, and enrolled at Michigan State University in 1961 to attend college.
She dropped out in 1964 during her junior year, working afterwards for a time as a teller at Michigan National Bank. At the birthday party of a mutual friend the same year, she met Pat O’Leary, who had recently graduated from the University of Detroit’s law school and was studying for the Michigan Bar. They married in November 1965, settling on the east side of Detroit, where two sons were born, Patrick (1966) and Peter (1968), who were followed by Michael (1971), by which time the family had moved to Grosse Pointe Park. They remained in Grosse Pointe, moving from the Park to the City to the Shores over the course of the next four decades.
Shortly before her marriage, Jan converted to Catholicism. For the rest of her life, she was a devout Catholic who thrived in the communion arising from the reforms of Vatican II. Throughout her life, she was actively involved in parish life, particularly in leading volunteer activities, such as Meals on Wheels.
She was actively involved in PTA when the boys were attending Defer Elementary; she was chief scorekeeper for Grosse Pointe Park Little League; and throughout her life took inspiration from lending friends and strangers a helping hand.
In the late 1970s, partly to prove to Pat that she could do it despite his doubts, she trained for a pilot’s license, which involved many months of ground school, followed by many hours of training in the air. Once she received her license in 1981, she delighted in taking her kids and their friends on aerial tours over Detroit, taking off and landing at City Airport. She once flew the kids to Mackinac Island and back on the same day!
In the late 1980s, Jan returned to college, enrolling at Oakland University, where she graduated in 1991 with a degree in General Studies. Her goal was to beat Michael out of college, which she did by two years. Around this time, Jan began to work as a travel agent, which allowed her to share one of her greatest passions, which was seeing the world. With Pat, she visited every continent on earth. She had an abiding love for Europe, especially Italy and France, and in the U.S., Hawaii and Florida. She loved warm weather and preferred the look of a good tan.
Beginning in 2002, Jan and Pat began to spend time in Grand Beach, Michigan, in order to be closer to her sons and their families, who were living in Chicago. In 2009, not long after Pat retired from practicing law, they made this move permanent. Her model for being a grandmother was something between a fairy godmother and one of the magical witches who lives in a gingerbread house in one of the tales of the Brothers Grimm. Imagine a person who would give you unlimited access to treats and who would constantly buy you presents, and you get a glimmer of what she was like as a grandma. She was adored.
And not only by her grandchildren. She was loved by friends and family for her cheerfulness, love, generosity, and, above all, her style. Jan’s fashion choices were bright colors and patterns, even blindingly. The brighter and bolder the color, the better. She loved shades of yellow especially, preferring to paint the walls of the houses she lived in in that shade. She happily professed, “It’s not possible to feel bad in a room painted yellow.”
Jan was a Detroiter at heart. Until the end, she loved Coney Islands, Sanders hot fudge, and Sanders’ chocolate fudge bumpy cakes. There were always cold cans of Faygo in her fridge.
Jan was deeply devoted to Pat and their marriage, and demonstrably committed to her family, including her sons and their wives, as well as his four grandchildren, but also to an extensive network of nieces and nephews, and their husbands and wives and children. She is survived by Patrick and Elizabeth (Crowley), Peter and Rebecca Houze, their children Gabriel and Lucian, and Michael and Una Moon, and their children Esther and Cyrus.
Visitation will be held on Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at Sommerfeld Chapel – 15 N. Barton St., New Buffalo, Michigan, beginning at 5 p.m. Eastern time. A funeral Mass will be said for Jan on Wednesday, February 26, 2025 at 11 a.m. Eastern time at St. Mary on the Lake Catholic Church in New Buffalo. She will be buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in New Buffalo.
Donations in Jan’s memory can be made to Al-Anon, Meals on Wheels, or St. Vincent de Paul.
Jan was born on October 5, 1943, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the first of three siblings, to Wayne Arthur and Phyllis Manson. Her father was in the army at the time and was stationed near Cincinnati. After the war, Jan moved to Detroit, where her parents had been living, and where she grew up, on the city’s east side. She attended Cass Tech in its heyday, graduating in 1961, and enrolled at Michigan State University in 1961 to attend college.
She dropped out in 1964 during her junior year, working afterwards for a time as a teller at Michigan National Bank. At the birthday party of a mutual friend the same year, she met Pat O’Leary, who had recently graduated from the University of Detroit’s law school and was studying for the Michigan Bar. They married in November 1965, settling on the east side of Detroit, where two sons were born, Patrick (1966) and Peter (1968), who were followed by Michael (1971), by which time the family had moved to Grosse Pointe Park. They remained in Grosse Pointe, moving from the Park to the City to the Shores over the course of the next four decades.
Shortly before her marriage, Jan converted to Catholicism. For the rest of her life, she was a devout Catholic who thrived in the communion arising from the reforms of Vatican II. Throughout her life, she was actively involved in parish life, particularly in leading volunteer activities, such as Meals on Wheels.
She was actively involved in PTA when the boys were attending Defer Elementary; she was chief scorekeeper for Grosse Pointe Park Little League; and throughout her life took inspiration from lending friends and strangers a helping hand.
In the late 1970s, partly to prove to Pat that she could do it despite his doubts, she trained for a pilot’s license, which involved many months of ground school, followed by many hours of training in the air. Once she received her license in 1981, she delighted in taking her kids and their friends on aerial tours over Detroit, taking off and landing at City Airport. She once flew the kids to Mackinac Island and back on the same day!
In the late 1980s, Jan returned to college, enrolling at Oakland University, where she graduated in 1991 with a degree in General Studies. Her goal was to beat Michael out of college, which she did by two years. Around this time, Jan began to work as a travel agent, which allowed her to share one of her greatest passions, which was seeing the world. With Pat, she visited every continent on earth. She had an abiding love for Europe, especially Italy and France, and in the U.S., Hawaii and Florida. She loved warm weather and preferred the look of a good tan.
Beginning in 2002, Jan and Pat began to spend time in Grand Beach, Michigan, in order to be closer to her sons and their families, who were living in Chicago. In 2009, not long after Pat retired from practicing law, they made this move permanent. Her model for being a grandmother was something between a fairy godmother and one of the magical witches who lives in a gingerbread house in one of the tales of the Brothers Grimm. Imagine a person who would give you unlimited access to treats and who would constantly buy you presents, and you get a glimmer of what she was like as a grandma. She was adored.
And not only by her grandchildren. She was loved by friends and family for her cheerfulness, love, generosity, and, above all, her style. Jan’s fashion choices were bright colors and patterns, even blindingly. The brighter and bolder the color, the better. She loved shades of yellow especially, preferring to paint the walls of the houses she lived in in that shade. She happily professed, “It’s not possible to feel bad in a room painted yellow.”
Jan was a Detroiter at heart. Until the end, she loved Coney Islands, Sanders hot fudge, and Sanders’ chocolate fudge bumpy cakes. There were always cold cans of Faygo in her fridge.
Jan was deeply devoted to Pat and their marriage, and demonstrably committed to her family, including her sons and their wives, as well as his four grandchildren, but also to an extensive network of nieces and nephews, and their husbands and wives and children. She is survived by Patrick and Elizabeth (Crowley), Peter and Rebecca Houze, their children Gabriel and Lucian, and Michael and Una Moon, and their children Esther and Cyrus.
Visitation will be held on Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at Sommerfeld Chapel – 15 N. Barton St., New Buffalo, Michigan, beginning at 5 p.m. Eastern time. A funeral Mass will be said for Jan on Wednesday, February 26, 2025 at 11 a.m. Eastern time at St. Mary on the Lake Catholic Church in New Buffalo. She will be buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in New Buffalo.
Donations in Jan’s memory can be made to Al-Anon, Meals on Wheels, or St. Vincent de Paul.
Service Details
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Additional Visitation Information
Rosary Tuesday evening at 7:45pm