...And Many Thanks

Janice Wilson Kassel is an Iowa farm wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother extraordinaire. From her earliest memories growing up in southern Iowa, Janice loved to read and write and dreamed of becoming a teacher. After graduating from New Market High in 1949, the young valedictorian ventured off to Iowa State University, where she studied home economics, developed lifelong friends, and met her husband, Ken Kassel. The two were married on December 16, 1951, at the Collegiate Methodist Church in Ames, where theyd met the year before. Starting out in DeKalb, Illinois, the couple would become parents to the first of four children within a year, and eventually return to the family farm in northwest Iowa, in 1959. Over the next 60 years, Janice raised her family, ran the farm books, took care of the lawn, fed the troops and served in a multitude of community activities. At 87, Janice is one of the busiest octogenarians you will ever meet, maintaining a full social calendar of church events, garden club, and coffee and cards with friends, even as she keeps up with 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Her desire to leave a legacy in the form of this book is her expression of deepest gratitude to her family and the life she was given and has enjoyed to the fullest.