Janice Reed Dyer

Janice Adams (Reed) Dyer, age 81, passed away at Kansas City Hospice House on July 18, 2019, losing her 3-month battle with Aplastic Anemia. Her husband of 62 years, Howard Bates Dyer, was at her side.

She was born in Denver, CO.on November 4, 1937 to George W. and Frankie (Adams) Reed who predeceased her. She is survived by her husband Howard Bates Dyer, by one sister, Jere Hill of Chapel Hill, TX, along with three sons; Howard Reed Dyer, Carthage, MO; Richard (Rick) Dyer, Edmond, OK; Frank (Randy) Dyer (Cori), Wildwood, MO; Four grandsons; Matthew (Cody) Dyer, Lebanon, MO; Dayne Dyer (Kate), Billings, MT; Cameron Dyer (Laura), Kirkwood, MO; Clayton Dyer, Houston, TX; and niece Dallas Pollard (Brad), Cypress, TX; and niece Amber Moodie-Dyer (Joe Smith), Vilas, NC.

She grew up in Tulsa, OK and graduated from Tulsa Central High School. She went on to graduate from Stephens College in Columbia, MO. with a major in fashion design. It was there she met and married Bates Dyer in 1957.

Janice was a beautiful, creative, intelligent, compassionate, caring wife, mother, grandmother and friend, with a great sense of humor. She loved to travel with her husband, family and friends and had visited all 50 states and many foreign countries including multiple visits to Canada and Mexico. Several ocean cruises were enjoyed with special friends. She especially enjoyed traveling by car or bus tour and always insisted on taking the back roads visiting people doing unique things in rural America. She loved the beach, so California and Florida were favorite destinations. La Jolla, CA. was her “special place”.

She enjoyed gardening and her songbirds. She created beautiful landscaping and gardens for which she was especially proud. She loved to play Canasta and other card games and board games with family and friends. She loved live theater featuring Broadway musicals, as well as live jazz performances. She was an avid reader having read hundreds of books, mostly favoring mystery stories based on historical facts. She had great fun cruising around in her vintage VW Bug convertible.

She was a long-time supporter of public television and favored historically based shows such as Downton Abbey, Mystery Theater, as well as her quilting, gardening, and cooking shows such as Pati’s Mexican Table. She and Bates enjoyed dates to the movie theater, primarily to see movies based on true stories.

She was an accomplished golfer, skier, bowler, and was a wonderful dancer. She and Bates enjoyed many dance dates in their younger years.

Her primary creative talents were as a master quilter and oil painter. Her dozens of beautiful quilts were all hand-pieced, hand-appliqued, and hand-quilted, almost a lost art these days. She also created custom upholstery and draperies and did cross stitch, needlepoint, knitting, and rug hooking and braiding. When one of her boys All Star baseball team needed urgent help sewing names on their uniforms, Janice came to the rescue.

As a military wife during Bates’ 25 years of Army service she set up comfortable family homes in ten different locations using her decorating skills. She incorporated unique antiques which she collected from all over the world along with her quilts and paintings. One unique assignment was a 2-year tour on Kwajalein Island in the South Pacific. Other tours were in Detroit, MI; White Sands, NM; Los Angeles, CA; Germany and Leavenworth, KS.

In Germany, she created a thrift shop in the basement of an old German barracks for the benefit of enlisted wives living on the local economy. She named it “The Closet”.

At Ft. Leavenworth she managed the Museum Gift Shop. During Bates’ one-year tour in Vietnam, she was everything to everybody, taking care of the boys, the house, a rental property, financial matters, and was Cub Scout Den Mother as well.

Upon Bates’ military retirement in Leavenworth in 1979, she served as office manager for their building company for several years. She was a dog lover having had several dogs over the years to include a Standard Poodle and three Yorkshire Terriers. Of course, she was always involved with the boy’s school and athletic endeavors involving many baseball and football games along with a lot of volunteer work in snack bars and for uniform maintenance. The grandsons always looked forward to cooking classes with grandma.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to www.kcpt.org (public television), to the Save The Oceans Project – 4ocean.com, or to the Leavenworth Public Library.

No service is planned. A Celebration of Life Open House will held on Sunday, August 4, 2019 from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm at the family residence.