Janet F. (Hall) Myers

Janet F. Myers, 94, of Elkhart, passed away Sunday May 14, 2023 at Greenleaf Health Campus, Elkhart. She was born March 3, 1929 in Chicago to Henry and Marion Hall. She married Bruce Smith he preceded her in death, she married her 2nd husband Neil V. Sailor, who also preceded her and death, she married Daniel Myers who preceded her in death on February 1, 1986.

Janet started her career as a switchboard operator for Indiana Bell Phone Company, to Miles Laboratory where she worked on the line, The Style Shop in Elkhart, Sears and Roebuck in sales. She enjoyed working as a choir director for Good Shepherd Church and St. John’s of the Cross Episcopal Church and she began doing vocal lessons at her home. She was very excited to have taught Diana Nichols Opera. Diana went on to sing at the Lincoln Center and at Carnegie Hall, just to name a few places. Janet and her husband Daniel traveled to Austria on The Queen Elizabeth II where she took summer music lessons at Gratz Music School. After their travels abroad, she opened the Baurer Tea room and Antiques as a place to  enjoy tea, with her business partner and sister Mary Ellen Strong. Where they were known as “Gus and Bess.”  She later opened the Green Block Tea Room and at the Brookdale Club -Tea room on CR 6. She operated the Downtown Elkhart Tea Room in the Old Elkhart Hotel, where she was famous for her roast beef sandwiches on egg bread. She would always offer a different soup and dessert for every day of the week. In her spare time, she wrote a Tea room cookbook. When the Hotel Elkhart decided to close Janet decided it was time for retirement. She was also an artist with her husband Neil, they enjoyed oil painting, she made paints of Bonneyville Mill County Park, Bristol Opera House and St. John of the Cross Episcopal Church during a snowy day. There were footprints leading up to the entrance of the church. The footprints were those of Marion Hall, Janet’s mother, going to stoke the fire to keep the church warm on Sundays. This painting also won Janet an award while living at the Maples Nursing Home in Elkhart. Her prize was to have the painting made into Christmas cards for the nursing home residents to send out for the holidays.

Surviving are her children, Cynthia (Gary) Keck of Bristol, Stacy (Rick) VanKlaveren of Fayetteville, GA, Laura Sailor of Union, MI, her daughters-in-law, Renee Brown of Elkhart and Patricia Smith of White Pigeon, MI., her grandchildren Eric Smith, Angela VanKlaveren, Michael (Jessie) VanKlaveren and Wyatt Noack; great-grandchildren Alex Smith, Abigail Brown and Aviyah VanKlaveren. She was preceded in death by her parents Henry and Marion Hall, husbands Bruce Smith, Neil V. Sailor and R. Daniel Myers, sons Michael B. Smith and James Smith, her siblings Charles B. Hall, Muriel J. Paul, Mary Ellen Strong and James H. Hall.

Visitation will be 10 am -1 2 pm Friday, May 19, 2023 at Stemm-Lawson-Peterson Funeral Home, 1531 Cobblestone Blvd., Elkhart, IN 46514 where funeral services will be held at 12pm at the funeral home where Mother Jennifer Fulton from St. John of the Cross Episcopal Church in Bristol will officiate. Burial next to her husband, Daniel, will follow at Rice Cemetery, Elkhart.

Memorials for Janet may be made to ProMedica Hospice, 230 W. Catalpa Drive D, Mishawaka, IN 46545 or at www.promedicahospice.org or St. John of the Cross Episcopal Church, 601 E. Vistula St., Bristol, IN 46507. Online condolences may be given at www.stemmlawsonpeterson.com