Janie (Takach) Faulkner

I left Yakima on graduation night in 1970, moved to Redwood City, Cal, only returning from time to time for weddings or funerals.

In August of 1970 I met my sweetheart, Tom. We eloped the following May 1, 1971 in Carson City, Nevada. From there we moved to Salem, Oregon. Tom was a police officer there for 7 years. I worked in retail until our first child was born. I then became a stay at home mom and wife, loving it! Steve was born August 1972, our daughter, Jaime, was born October 1976. Shortly after that, Tom resigned from the Salem Police Dept and went to work for UPS> I did lots of volunteer work at the kids' school and our church. UPS moves us to Eugene, Oregon in 1987 for 5 years. Tom was the center manager for the Springfield office. I had fun catering all the summer barbeques for the center on special holidays each year.

I continued to stay busy shuffling the kids to their different activities. Plus I lead a women's Bible study, aught crocheting and Knitting and even taught young wives how to do home canning. From there, UPS moved us to the Portland, Oregon area. Tom then became the employment manager for a few years. I seemed to always keep busy with the kids' activities and more volunteer work. He retired in 2004 and we became empty nesters.

We have done some extensive traveling, to Hawaii & Europe & have seen most of the USA. But Tom didn't like not working, so he went back to work as a technical writer for a software company. The company moved us to Chicago for a year & then laid Tom off, June 2009. We packed ourselves up & moved back, kind of. We rented out our house in Vancouver, Wa and moved into our motor home then moved north to be close to our daughter and her family. Her husband is in the military, so they won't be here for long. Each child has 2 sons, and we enjoy being grandparents.

Last August, the company rehired Tom and now he is a traveling consultant. We love it! We travel all over the country. Most of this year we have lived at the Marriott in Rochester, New York. We love venturing out on weekends. Have been to Niagara Falls a few times, viewing it from both the US and Canadian sides. From now on, who knows where we will be? Our life is fun and exciting!