Jan Gillilan

Jan Gillilan is modest, like her husband Hugh. Each had to disclose that the other had graduated Phi Beta Kappa and had gone on to earn a Doctorate degree.

Jan was born in Michigan but moved with her family to Ohio while a freshman in high school. Fortunate for us, we might say, since she went on to the University of Ohio where she met Hugh. She majored in history and minored in German and education. She graduated one year ahead of Hugh and taught for a half year before their marriage. On the night before the blissful event, their Methodist church burned down, but the Presbyterian minister agreed they could use his church, and the ceremony went forward as planned.

The first summer after their marriage she began her lifetime of service with Hugh. Together they went to New York City on a college summer service project, working on a YWCA effort to integrate blacks and whites in Morningside Park. They tried to create an integrated play group, involve parents, and reduce tension between Harlem and Columbia Heights.

Hugh continued with his schooling while Jan earned her PHT (Putting Hubby Through) as a secretary at Allstate, but what else did women who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from college do in those days? She worked at Allstate until the first of her three children was born, and then worked as a mommy for ten years.

In 1966, then living in Utah, she went back to school, earning a master';s degree in social work from the University of Utah. She worked at the Murray Allen Center for the Blind as a social worker, as well as at the Family Counseling Center and eventually in the Granite School District, where she worked for 25 years until her retirement in 1996, and during which time she earned a Doctor of Social Work in 1981, also from the U. Among her responsibilities in the Granite School District were the graduate students and the parent education center.

Today she enjoys grandparenting her three grandchildren in Salt Lake City and Bozeman, Montana, as well as volunteering. She is active in the League of Women Voters, has served on the board of the American Association of University Women, is a member of a citizens foster care review panel, and engages in various church activities for the Unitarian Church. Indeed, she was one of the founders of the Community Cooperative Nursery School at the church in 1963, which is still thriving. She and Hugh also travel, a well-deserved reward for a rich life of giving and caring.

--Earl Wunderli