I learned that my friend and colleague Jan Rosenberg had died from another friend and colleague, Sue Eleuterio, in a text about a week ago while I was having an otherwise happy day with my daughter who was visiting for the holidays. M.E. didn’t remember Jan too well, but here they are, in the only photo I could ever remember taking of Jan (at left, at a conference in Bloomington circa. 1992, Jan at right, long time secretary of the IU Folklore Department Velma Carmichael at the left).
When someone dies, you always immediately think of the last time you spoke to them. I called Jan around Christmas, and after playing telephone tag for awhile as we often did, we connected and chatted about her research, her book currently at the publishers, and the next thing she wanted to do. And about how hard going to dialysis a few times a week was for her but how nice the drivers who took her there were.
Lately, our conversations started as strong as usual, the same old Jan, a mixture of complaining, complimenting, laughing, and talking seriously about our work as folklorists. But I could tell that she was getting tired when she started not making as much sense, admitting to not having a lot of stamina. That final call ended abruptly when she said “she had to go.” I assumed she would call back at some point in the future when she felt up to it. Should I have tried to call her again later to make sure she was okay? Probably.
What’s the next thing you think about when someone dies? When I thought about Jan, I remembered that we had not seen each other very often, usually at American Folklore Society meetings where we’d steal away for coffee or, for her, a beer (in my memory, she rarely ate a decent meal, so lunch or dinner were usually not on the docket). She did visit us back when we lived in Olney, Maryland, staying for several days while she did research at the Library of Congress. (She had driven in her white truck with her dog, whose name I don’t recall. I don’t recall where she was living at the time, but it was a far piece. She didn’t like flying.)
I remembered the many long phone calls over the years, during which we usually hashed over the state of Folklore and Education endlessly. Why were folklorists always “reinventing the wheel” of folklore and ed? Why was something so obviously important (and with many historic antecedents, as Jan had documented over the years) still ignored by most mainstream educators? What could we do about it, if anything?
I recall one phone call, which lasted most of the way between Arlington, VA and Harrisburg, PA where I was driving to a Middle Atlantic Folklorists Association conference. So, at least two hours, which was common. I don’t recall everything we were talking about, but it certainly made the drive more fun, to have Jan there virtually in the car with me. There was no such thing as a short phone call with Jan.
I recall, when we did get together in person, she smelled like the heavy smoker she was. I remember her laugh, which was hearty and frequent, even when being expressed more in exasperation than mirth, and usually ended in her smoker’s cough. She had a deep sense of the irony in things. She cut to the chase. She was kind, curious, fiercely loyal to her friends, compassionate, and stubborn. Quirky, individualistic, and very much her own person.
Her expression in this photo is a little hard to read. A bit of amusement, a bit of tenderness, a bit of uncertainty. That was just Jan.
