Obituary of Janet McNeill Green

Janet McNeill Green, loving sister, mother, and friend, died peacefully at the age of 80 at her home in Ashtabula, Ohio, on October 23, 2012. Janet McNeill Green was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on Dec. 18, 1931, the youngest and last child of Paul and Elizabeth Green, authors and social activists. She lived in Chapel Hill, except for occasional stays in Los Angeles, California, until she graduated from Chapel Hill High School (valedictorian), in 1949. She attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison as a dance major until she returned to a warmer clime, graduating from the University of North Carolina, Phi Beta Kappa, with Honors in English in 1954. She did secretarial work in New York City for a few years and then obtained her Master of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1961. She then obtained her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in 1969. She married John S. Catlin (Jack) in 1964 and after their only child, Virginia McNeill, was born in 1969, the family moved to Norman, Oklahoma. After a divorce she accepted a position as Assistant Professor of English at Kent State University in Ashtabula, Ohio, in 1990. After retiring from Kent, she taught part-time at Penn State University at Behrend in Erie for two years and then, retiring from teaching, settled in Ashtabula permanently. She had taught English in colleges in North Carolina, Virginia and Oklahoma (at Rose State College in Midwest City). Her scholarly work focused on the rhetoric of Queen Elizabeth I, and in addition, she wrote pedagogical articles, poems and essays as well as plays for members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Shakespeare Company. Her awards include a Career Teaching Fellowship at UNC and a grant to study in England from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1984). She was a member of the Ashtabula County Choral Music Society, the YMCA, the Salvation Army Advisory Committee, the Neighborhood Watch on Walnut Blvd., the Harbor-Topky Library Book Club, Alcoholics Anonymous, the Paul Green Foundation and the Democratic Party. She is survived by her daughter Virginia (Jenny) and her husband Scott Storm who, with their children Sarah McNeill, Joshua Thomas, Jonathan Catlin and Madeline Grace, live in Morocco. She is also survived by a brother, Paul Green, Jr., of Chapel Hill, NC; a sister Byrd Green Cornwell of Morganton, NC; a sister Betsy Green Moyer and her husband William of Concord, MA; and by many beloved cousins (especially Claire Shaffner of Richmond, VA, and Avery Russell and her husband Fred McLaren of Nederland, CO) and also by many beloved nieces and nephews and their children. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Children's International, St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Ashtabula, OH, or the Salvation Army. A graveside memorial service will be held on Monday, November 5, at 11:00 a.m. at the Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery, 1721 Legion Road, Chapel Hill. Online condolences may be sent to walkersfuneralservice.com