Janet Halpin

Janet Halpin, 81, went home to The Father Tuesday, March 14 at CHI St. Joseph Health Center in Bryan.

She was born December 18, 1935 in Elmira, NY, the first child of Frank and Clara Karnes Lemoncelli. She was baptized at St. Mary’s Catholic Church and attended St. Mary’s Catholic Church and attended St. Mary’s Catholic school through the eighth grade. She then went to Elmira Southside High School where, in tenth grade history class, she encountered a scruffy ne’er-do-well from the wrong side of the tracks. She made it her life work to making him presentable to polite society. It is debated as to whether she was successful.

Janet told her mother “I left for my honeymoon a virgin and came home a mother.” Her first child, Elaine Marie was born 8 months and 27 days after her wedding and you may be assured that all the aunts were counting on their fingers. They were somewhat mollified when Elaine weighed in at a mere 4 pounds 7 ounces. The child did not thrive at first and went down to 3 pounds 2 ounces before she started to gain. In 1956 three pound babies did not survive. She was, and continues to be a miracle. Patricia Francis came along two years later, again a preemie, but weighing in at a decent 5 and a half pounds. Patty thrived from the first day.

When Patty was only 6 months old, Janet and her young family left the comfort of home and hearth to accompany her husband on the start of a fantastic adventure. They arrived at Cape Canaveral at the very dawn of the Space Age. On the day of their arrival, NASA launched two monkeys in sub-orbital flight, the first American primates to enter space. The family remained in Florida until the space program moved to Houston at the start of Gemini. Life in Florida was, for the most part, pleasant, but extremely stressful. Her husband was away from home for months at a time, setting up computer sites at down-range tracking stations in the Caribbean, in the South Atlantic and at Pretoria South Africa. Janet and the girls were alone in Florida during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and for more than one hurricane which struck the East coast.

Shortly after moving to Houston, Janet and her family started going camping. The four of them camped in a great big tent from Sears over a large part of Texas and up into Wyoming and the Dakotas. When Somerville Lake opened in the late sixties, they were some of the first to try it out. They continued to visit Burleson County until 1979, when they bought an 84 year old farm house on what was to become Annie’s Lane in the Frenstat Community. A year later, the Austin Chalk oil boom hit Burleson County and times were grand. Janet and her husband have been nearly full time Caldwell residents ever since.

For her whole life, Janet has been an active member of the Roman Catholic Church. First at St. Mary’s in Elmira, then Our Savior’s Catholic Church in Cocoa Beach FL. Upon moving to Houston she and her family were parishioners of St. Christopher’s, and lastly of Holy Rosary in Frenstat.

The last few years have been hard for Janet. Diminishing health has caused her to need to be a resident at Burleson St. Joseph Manor several times. Each time she and her husband have been treated like family. It would be impossible to over-state the kindness and competent care she has received and “The Manor.” Her family is eternally grateful for their care.

Janet was preceded in her journey Home by her parents. She is survived by her devoted and bereft husband, Lyle (Hal) Halpin, her sister and brother-in-law Barbara and Jack Semon in Jarrettsville, MD, her daughters, Elaine Laborde in San Antonio, Patty Halpin and Linda Loredo in Houston, and her grandson and his wife Kenny and Shannon Carpenter in Caldwell.

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