22 Nov 1937 – 19 Jan 2010
3rd-Great-grand-daughter of Philip Cardon and Martha Marie Tourn
2nd-Great-granddaughter of Louis Philip Cardon and Susette Stalé
Great-Granddaughter of Joseph Samuel Cardon and Selenia Mesenile Walker
Granddaughter of Junius Welborn Cardon and Mae Whiting
Daughter of Irene Cardon and Vaughn L. Christensen
Janice Loar Obituary
Janice Christensen Loar 72, died peacefully at home surrounded by family and loved ones January 19, 2010. Jan was born in Fruitland, NM on November 22, 1937. At age 16, Jan contracted polio during the epidemic of the early 1950’s. She faced this disability with faith and courage. Her strong will and determination enabled her to learn to walk again with the aid of a brace and crutch, catch up on her studies and graduate with her class. Little did she know, the handsome young man who asked to be her graduation escort would someday be her husband. That faith, courage, and determination became her hallmark strength throughout her life.
She attended Brigham Young University and married Marvin John Loar on December 19, 1961. It was one of her fondest desires to become a Mother. Her disability did not discourage her from making that goal a reality. She had seven children, six sons and finally a daughter. Her courage was tested throughout her life, but never more difficult than in 1981 when she lost 2 of her sons in a tragic car accident. Jan’s legacy of faith and determination is defined in her years of service to others, capacity to unconditionally love everyone, and her ability to bring sunshine into every life she touched. She was an extraordinary wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, and friend.
Jan is preceded in death by her sons Shaun David Loar and Shannon Mark Loar. She is survived by her husband of 49 years, Marvin John Loar and five children. Sheldon Lee (Sherry) Loar, Sherwin Von (Tylene) Loar, Shane Merrill (Laura) Loar, Shalynn Kenneth (Allison) Loar, and Sherri Ann (Shane) Merkley. She is also survived by 22 adoring grandchildren.
Visitation is scheduled for Friday, January 22, 2010, from 7-9pm at Sonoran Skies Mortuary, 5650 E. Main St., Mesa, AZ 85205. Funeral Services will be held Saturday, January 23, 2010, at 10am with visitation from 8:30-9:30am prior to services at the LDS Pueblo Stake Center at 2334 E. Pueblo, Mesa, AZ 85204.
To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.
-Published by The Arizona Republic on Jan. 22, 2010.
LIFE SKETCH OF
JANICE CHRISTENSEN LOAR
Janice Christensen Loar was born 11/22/37 in Fruitland NM, the second child of Vaughn and
Irene Cardon Christensen. Her sister Carole was 13 months old at the time, and the two became lifetime
companions and devoted friends; sharing beds, clothes, dolls, toys, playmates, household chores, sacred
secrets, and even dating the same boys. They walked together from their ranch home in southern
Colorado to the country school where Jan was the only first grader and Carole the only second grader in
the one room facility which accommodated less than a dozen students in grades 1-8. Soon their parents
sent them to live with their maternal grandparents in Farmington, NM, some fifty miles distant where it
was felt there would be better educational and social opportunities for them. Within a few years their
father moved the family to a small dairy farm there, and that is where Jan spent the rest of her
unmarried life. Irene taught her and Carole to sing in harmony and they would sing as they did dishes
and other chores, on summer evenings on the front porch, and even when they would lie in bed at
night. In later years Vaughn would purchase a ukulele, which Carole would play as they often sang in
Church programs or social gatherings. At one such Church program they were performing a medley of
“happy songs,” hoping to cheer up the congregation who’d endured a particularly gloomy rainy week;
when they both suddenly realized they weren’t singing the correct song as the first song in the medley.
Looking at each other in shocked surprise, they broke into one of their infamous uncontrollable fits of
laughter. Their several unsuccessful efforts to stop laughing and start singing again soon had the whole
congregation laughing, and they sat down hoping they’d accomplished their task.
Jan’s life was always in high gear; whether walking to school, taking dancing lessons, playing the
piano, babysitting, doing dishes with Carole, or picking raspberries from the family garden. It seems she
was always first and fastest. When their friends got together, she always led out in planning a party or
some other activity. As she neared her fifteenth birthday, she’d finally nudged her slender weight up to
125 pounds, had purchased her first nylon stockings and high heel shoes, and nagged Vaughn into
letting her drive the pickup with him around the farm in preparation for obtaining her drivers’ permit.
Then life suddenly changed. She awoke one morning with a fever and had difficulty breathing. Within
days the unbelievable became a reality. She was diagnosed with the dreaded crippling, killing
disease: Polio. As her breathing became progressively more difficult, a local pilot was contracted to fly
her 250 miles away to a hospital with a Polio ward. The next day her lungs collapsed and she was stuffed
into an Iron Lung which mechanically breathed for her. Her life had been saved! Carole and their
younger brother, Marvin, had also been afflicted with the disease. Although Marvin recovered at home,
Carole soon joined Jan in the Polio ward, but she wasn’t placed in an Iron Lung. Her presence inspired
Jan who had persistently pled with the doctors to let her try and breathe outside of the massive
machine. When they finally removed her, she only gasped a few short breaths before begging to go
back. She struggled each day to survive a little longer out of the monster’s grasp until, at the end of
six weeks, she was finally free. Soon afterward Carole completed her therapies and returned home.
Several long weeks later Jan was transferred to a hot springs hospital for more extended physical
therapy. Finally, after completing a total of 9 months of hospital treatment, she returned home where
her parents would lay her on the kitchen table and administer continued therapy to her limbs each
morning before breakfast. She weighed a whopping 87 pounds. Her right hand was twisted into a
permanent fist, and she couldn’t lift her hands above her waist. She couldn’t dress herself. She had a full
length metal brace on her paralyzed left leg and walked with two crutches, which enabled her to
shuffle slowly across the floor. Steps required considerable additional help from others.
The thought of attending church meetings her first Sunday home terrified her. How could she
endure the rejection and pity of her former friends and associates? But her parents were insistent, and
she made her first appearance. The genuine kindness of friends, neighbors and ward members was
stunning; although she was convinced it was only an act of pity. When invited to a youth fireside
meeting that evening, she refused and went home. But that evening, a group of her young friends drove
into the driveway, came into the house and forcibly took her to the home where the meeting was held;
helping her up the steps into the house, arguing over who got to sit by her and who would help her with
the refreshments. It was the beginning of an unending pattern: She never missed a meeting, a party, a
dance or a hayride; and she was never left alone to watch others dance or participate. She regained her
position as party planner, everyone’s friend, and the biggest smile in the house! And Carole was always
at her side.
Jan had missed the 10th grade. By holding a pen firmly in her twisted right hand while guiding it
with her left hand, she had developed an excellent penmanship. But there was no way she could attend
the high school with its long hallways and terrible, impossible stairs. A county school tutor was hired,
and Jan immersed herself in high school at home, ultimately qualifying to graduate with her class at the
end of their senior year in 1955. Carole had graduated a year earlier and had attended a year at BYU.
She insisted that Jan prepare to go to the “Y” promising to take care of her there. Finally, Vaughn
purchased a used car and sent the girls 8 hours away to the college where they lived off campus in a
basement apartment with four other girls who also became lifelong friends. After two years of college
Jan obtained employment at the Farmington City Hall as the front desk receptionist/switchboard
operator, and she became somewhat of an icon there.
During her last year at BYU, she had developed a close friendship with Marv Loar who was also
from Farmington. They had not associated closely (as he was not a member of the Church) until near the
close of their senior year when he was baptized. Ironically, he had volunteered to march with her in their
graduation procession and helped her up the steps onto the stage. After their college association he was
called on a 2 ½ year mission for the Church, and they corresponded regularly during that time. After he
returned and spent 6 months in active duty with the Army Reserve. They were married on December 19,
1961 even though a small group of close well-meaning mature couples had invited him to dinner where
they informed him what an unwise thing it would be to marry a crippled girl, who would not be able to
keep a home or care for their children in the event they were even able to have children.
Marv and Jan enjoyed a close loving relationship, although he quickly communicated his attitude
that he did not consider her a cripple. He was happy to do what she needed him to do, but he would not
unduly patronize her. When they arose the first morning of their honeymoon, he refused to put her
brace on her as her mother had always done, and he left to find a place to eat breakfast. After sitting on
the edge of the bed crying for a moment, she angrily struggled around and found a way to put the brace
on herself. Throughout all their married years he dressed her, undressed her, and did her hair. But he
never once put the brace on her. After the honeymoon they returned to BYU where they rented a little
one bedroom home for the rest of the year. They put their furniture in storage for the next summer
while Marv worked for Vaughn and Jan was rehired for the summer at City Hall. In the fall they rented a
three-bedroom home and roomed and boarded Jan’s brother Marvin and a friend, and two of Marv’s
missionary friends. The next year they kept three girls. These all remained lifelong friends and Jan
established herself as a wonderful cook and housekeeper.
During the next ten years Jan gave birth to seven children: 6 boys and a daughter. Always
fearful that she would be unable to pick her children up and hold them, she had to experiment with her
first son. While Marv was away at work and school, she found that while the baby was lying on the high
flat level crib, she could feed and change him; but she had no way to hold him or move him. Finally,
considering the way of the stork, she pulled him onto a receiving blanket, pulled the comers of the
blanket together and rolled them so she could grip them in her teeth. Then, with a prayer, she stood
straight up, lifting the baby off the crib and walked a few steps and placed him in a simple infant seat
which she could then grip with her hands, holding it at arm’s length below her waist. This way she could
walk with him where she wanted and care for him in the infant seat or move him stork-style back to the
crib. When Marv was home, she would sit or lie down and have him place the baby in her arms to cuddle
and love. As they grew older, the toddlers knew when they came to her for love and attention that they
must wait for her to sit in a chair, and then turn around and back up to her, so she could bend down and
place her arms under their arms and clasp her hands in front of them, then pull them up on to her lap to
love and comfort. With these unique methods she raised all seven children. As they grew older they
learned to help her in many ways with household chores and the care of the younger children. One day
Marv received a phone call at work informing him she’d fallen. When he arrived home, he found her and
all three pre-school children lying comfortably on the kitchen floor, where they’d procured pillows and
blankets and a book, and she was reading to them until Daddy got home.
After finishing at BYU, they spent five years back in Farmington, and then joined the Church
Education System. Marv taught five years in Wyoming, five years in the Salt Lake Valley, and moved to
Mesa AZ in 1980. Through the years Jan had endured problems with the blood vessels on the inside arch
of her crippled foot breaking into an open bleeding sore, confining her to bed. When the wound would
heal, Marv would wrap her foot with an ace bandage before getting her up to resume her normal
activities for the day. While she was visiting family with Vaughn and Irene in Utah, in the summer of
1981, Marv and the two middle sons, #4 & #5, ages 11 and 12, drove to the Grand Canyon to pick up a
group of Explorer Scouts and their leaders from the Ward who’d been hiking the canyon. On their way
home, three drunken men driving a four-wheel-drive pickup the wrong direction on the freeway hit their
station wagon head on, killing a scout, the scout leader and their two sons. Always positive and happy,
while she grieved, Jan taught eternal truths to her other children and arranged the boys’ funeral and
burial, as Marv lay unconscious for thirty days in the hospital. Later, while sitting next to his bed trying to
comfort him, she fell from her chair, breaking her paralyzed leg just above the brace.
Over the twenty some years that Marv and Jan lived at 758 South Toltec in Mesa, many occasions
arose when someone needed a temporary home or a place to stay while experiencing changes in their
lives. The five-bedroom, three-bath home afforded ample opportunity for someone or a group of
someones to live in for a while. Jan’s open hospitable nature made them feel welcome and she welcomed
their help in keeping the house and preparing meals. An acquaintance that helped sponsor Japanese
students who wanted to attend high school in America contacted them and arranged for two different
Japanese boys to each spend a year or more at the Loar house while attending school. Both of them
became close friends and one returned several times to spend his summer vacation time with them. Out
of curiosity Marv sat down and counted the number of persons who had spent two weeks or more as
guests in their home and totaled a figure of more than eighty persons. Finally, in the mid 1990s, as Jan’s
balance and lack of strength restricted her housekeeping activities, they had to get the word out to
extended family and friends that “Marv & Jan’s Bed and Breakfast” was officially closed.
In 2000 Marv retired from the car dealership where he had worked for the past 12 years and
went to Idaho to work with his oldest son. Sherri kept tabs on Jan from her home ten minutes away. She
and her husband decided to sell their home and just move in with Marv and Jan, enabling her to be more
consistent in looking after her mother when Marv might need to be gone. From that time, Jan used a
wheelchair when going further than just around the house, although when she arrived where she was
going she still used her crutch to stand and walk. In 2002 Marv and Jan were called on a CES Institute
support mission to the Central Utah Correctional Facility, located in Gunnison, Utah. Ironically this was
where Jan’s sister, Carole, and her husband lived. Jan became almost terrified when she realized she’d
be teaching prisoners, and prisoners who were all men, but she quickly became a favorite among the
inmates who often chided Marv if he didn’t seem to pay as much attention to Jan’s protection and care
as they thought he should. During these years she was still able to walk around with her crutch to a
limited extent, and could still get out of bed by herself and walk to the bathroom and back at night or
during times when Marv would teach in the prison without her. They extended their 18-month calling
twice for a total of 2 ½ years; and in comparison to her tears of apprehension when originally driving to
the assignment, her tears of sadness shed upon leaving there were far greater. She always kept track of
the inmates who had been released, and struggled to keep in touch; especially with one who had no
family to go home to.
While on their mission they gave Sherri and her husband permission to sell the home in Mesa. It
sold quickly and Sherri and Shane moved to Idaho in the same ward with Shane and Laura. Marv and Jan
considered staying in Gunnison after their mission, as they enjoyed the wonderful people they’d grown
to love there, and the location was about eight hours from their children in AZ. and an equal distance
from those in ID. But their children didn’t feel it was wise for them to be so far away from all of them.
So, Shane Merkley moved them to Nampa, ID where he and Sherri had kept a room for them. Marv
hired a cabinet maker in the ward to come in and do a custom build out, with place for Jan’s silk plants,
bird houses, ceramics, books, temple picture and family pictures, making the room homey and
attractive. When wintertime came, they journeyed back south to Arizona and stayed with Sherwin and
Tylene and Shalynn and Allison, among the people they’d grown to love over their many years in Mesa.
The only problem was they fell so in love with the people in Nampa, that no matter where they were,
they were homesick for someplace else. And it was sixteen hours travel time between AZ and ID.
Fortunately, they stopped half-way between in Gunnison to stay with Jan’s sister for a day; but that was
more of the same, because of the wonderful people they’d grown to love there during their mission.
They continued this fulfilling frustrating schedule for five years.
In March 2009 Sherwin and Tylene leased a house about a mile from the old Toltec home, which had a
master suite that was perfect for Jan. Besides her king size bed, there were end tables and a
desk, a TV was mounted on the wall above the bookshelves and her 93 year old mother purchased a
special recliner for her. And there was still room for Marv to maneuver the wheelchair and potty chair
around as needed. The side wall housed a large, curved bay window which Tylene hung with white sheer
panels and a dark blue valance, and the room was large enough to accommodate all her pictures,
ceramics, books and silk plants. Another infection in the arch of her foot delayed their return to Idaho
for a month or so, and while there they decided it would be wise to move all their “stuff’ to Arizona and
make that their home base, traveling to Idaho whenever it seemed feasible. The kids had decided it was
unwise for the folks to travel alone anymore, and Sherri had flown to AZ and drove back to ID with
them. Then Shane drove back to AZ with them in November and flew home. Their bishop in Idaho
commented that he had a feeling he wouldn’t see them back again.
In the first part of December Jan began having trouble breathing again, and her oxygen level
dropped into the 80s. The doctor said to take her to the Emergency Room. She was hospitalized
December 14 and spent a week in the hospital. Her breathing was much better, but the doctor said she
was as well as she would get; they’d done all they could do. She seemed much better and resumed most
regular activities, making all feel she was on her way to recovery. However, the first week of January
she began having difficulty breathing at night. During the second week she spent most of her nights in
the recliner. By the weekend she hardly slept at all. Finally on Tuesday, hospice delivered medication to
help her relax. They gave it to her twice in the mid-afternoon. She finally fell asleep around 4:45 and
died in her sleep about 5:30 on January 19. How grateful they all were that she did not suffer and went
peacefully to the many who waited to embrace her beyond the veil.
Mountain View Funeral Home and Cemetery Mesa, Maricopa County, Arizona
