Janice D. Breakey

Janice D. Breakey, 86, of Webster and Devils Lake, ND, passed away on Monday, December 22, 2025. With her living children (Jim of Naples, Florida, and Sharlene of New York City) there to ease her journey, Janice made her way to her cherished daughter Kim and husband Roger, and to the Lord who was ever present in her big and beautiful life.

Janice took her first breath on November 14, 1939, in Devils Lake, and her early years were spent on 5th Street in the Harrington family’s gorgeous three-layer brick house, with a white wooden porch and stained-glass windows with sills deep enough for her to sit in. She grew up with a houseful of siblings, younger sisters Sharon (Nixon) and twins LaVonne (Smith) and Lorraine, brother Robert, and older sister Marilyn (Burkhart) with whom she loved sharing a room. Marilyn remembers the young Jan skipping out the back door with friends before walking the block downtown to the movies. There, she’d spend her 25-cent allowance on popcorn and a nut goodie — and sometimes bring one home to her parents, Lyle and Ruth, who lived large in Janice’s dreams and memories in the final months before she breathed her last.

By all accounts a busy and popular high school student, Janice was in the Pep and Glee clubs, played clarinet in Band, sang in the Mixed Chorus, and worked on Student Council. She was also kept busy helping her parents, when they started the R&L City Center Motel, building units in their backyard. Then, out one night with her lifelong friend Myrna Altringer and Myrna’s boyfriend Tommy Peterson, Janice fell for her one true love: Tommy’s cousin, Roger Breakey. In quick succession, they’d exchanged ID bracelets and gotten engaged, and, as she always said, Janice spent the second semester of senior year doing much more wedding planning than schoolwork. Janice and Roger were married at St. Olaf Lutheran Church, on June 16, 1957.

The next year, the couple began to realize their vision of building a farm, moving to the John Quast homestead near Webster, with their new baby, Kim. The rambling two-story house had gorgeous woodwork and two staircases — but no running water. Undoubtedly grueling, especially in the years before Janice put her foot down about adding plumbing, that time was also one of joy and fun as two more kids arrived, the yard filled with kittens and puppies, and the family’s Webster community burgeoned. A DIYer before that term was coined, Janice wallpapered the cracked walls with lively prints, re-covered kitchen chairs in red vinyl, spray-painted recycled lamps, and sewed doll clothes from her own tops and sweaters. During this period, her folks were also growing their business, razing the house to expand the motel into the blueprint that still stands. But while the Harrington kids never quite got over the loss of their old brick home, the motel became a lively meeting place and playground for cousins, whenever Janice’s siblings, who had scattered across the country, returned to visit.

Meanwhile, at the little white Scandinavian Lutheran Church just down the road from their farm, Janice sang solo hymns, served as the superintendent of the Sunday school, and wrote Christmas pageants. With her Webster friends in the neighborhood Homemakers Club, she learned breadmaking, and cooked and sewed, all with children underfoot — until the day they made their stand, moving the meetings to evening so the husbands could take care of the kids. The amount of farm- and housework was grueling, of course, and Janice’s kids were asked to pitch in from a young age — especially Jim. But he could always count on his mom to step in when needed, with a “Roger, he’s just a boy!” Still, early family trials became family lore, recounted through the years around the kitchen counter. Those stories of grit, joy, and hard work instilled in the Breakey children not only a love of community, but a sense of responsibility, adventure, and entrepreneurship bolstered by the belief that they could become whatever they wanted to be — just as their parents had.

Soon enough, Janice and Roger were able to start buying land, and in 1972 they moved to the Clarence Maxwell place, just east of Webster, with its five-acre farmstead blooming with hollyhocks, peonies, evergreens, and fruit trees. As the Breakey farm grew, so did the neighbors’ respect for Janice and the working partnership she forged with Roger; Janice kept “the guys” fed with her fried chicken, as was expected, but also managed the books, tracked plant stages and sprays, inspected the crops, and weighed in on all major decisions, even as she maintained her own garden and created the family’s warm “forever homes” (overseeing the rehabbing of the Maxwell house then the building of their own). Those houses welcomed school friends; hosted a wedding for Kim, a reception for Jim, and countless other parties, including a legendary Harrington family reunion. When they could, the Breakeys stole away to Leech Lake in Walker, Minnesota, and wintered in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where they made a second set of lifelong friends. And after her children scattered, Janice continued to stage magical Christmases, enticing them and her grandchildren back with her famous doughnuts, buns, boundless love, and cookies — dozens and dozens of cookies.

Such happy times ended much too soon, when in one traumatic yearlong period Roger succumbed to an aggressive cancer in 2005 just months after Kim died from a sudden illness. Still, it was a life Janice was so profoundly grateful to have had, she would say that it was “living the exact right life and loving the exact right man” that fortified her. This gave her the strength not only to mourn but to build a full next chapter for herself, one that included helping to watch over Kim’s teen son, Evan, who moved to Devils Lake to be near his beloved grandma. Inevitably, as Janice aged and her dear grandson grew into a man, he was the one to watch over her.

Janice filled those days with many activities. Volunteering at St. Olaf, she helped tend to the congregation with Faith and Care, organized events, and served on the board. A great lover of music, she found much joy in singing again, for both the church choir and Silver Sensations. At what affectionately came to be called the 4:30 Club, Janice met with her dearest friends, without fail, on Fridays. And she travelled, continuing to winter in Arizona for a few years, but also visiting her children, siblings, and their families; she made a tradition of spending several weeks a year in New York City, where she’d bunk with her grandkids, Zeke and Edie, see as many Broadway musicals as possible, and became a fixture in her daughter Sharlene’s Chelsea neighborhood, as locals grew to know and love her and her tiny Pomeranian in a stylish jacket, Tinkerbell. Tinkerbell was one of three senior dogs and a cat that she cared for, each of them filling this period of her life with a sense of purpose and reciprocated love (not to mention a reason to shop).

Through the years, Janice, also endured a great deal of physical pain, battling an autoimmune disease and suffering a broken back, but she always modeled a quiet perseverance that prompted every one of her grandchildren, when asked for words to describe her, to include the word “strong.” Hers was a gentle and accepting strength, one that, while she was in the hospital and rehab, moved her to call her grandson Jeff to ask him to sing to her because she knew he would ease the hurt, and allowed her, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, to hold and sing to her first great-grandchild when granddaughter Kristen laid the baby in her arms.

In one of life’s great circles, Janice eventually reunited with many of her Webster friends at Heartland Eventide Assisted Living, where once again they leaned on one another and enjoyed each other’s families as if they were their own. She will be deeply missed.

Janice is survived by her daughter Sharlene (Neil Fine) and son Jim (Karen Brennan); grandchildren Jeff (Tabitha) Breakey, Kristen (Greg) Seremet, Ezekiel Fine, Eden Fine, Evan (Randi) Peterson; great-grandchildren Tyler and Sadie Seremet, and sister Marilyn Burkhart of Canby, Oregon. In addition to her husband Roger and daughter Kim, she was preceded in death by her parents Ruth and Lyle Harrington and siblings Bob Harrington, Lavonne Smith, Lorraine Harrington, and Sharon Nixon. 

We will celebrate her at St. Olaf Lutheran Church, Devils Lake, where she spent so many hours volunteering, singing, and gathering with her beloved community. 

Celebration of Life will be held on Wednesday, January 7, 2026, at 10:30 a.m. at St. Olaf Lutheran Church, Devils Lake, with Reverend Lori Pankratz officiating. Following the service, there will be a time of fellowship in the church dining hall, with burial to follow in the Devils Lake Cemetery.