Janet Stromborg

Janet Stromborg, 70, of Denmark died peacefully of heart failure on Jan. 25. She was born July 16, 1946 in Chicago to Everett Norton and Norma Rosalie (Wiggin) Case. The family lived in Homewood, IL where she met Ken in Junior High School. Their romance began and blossomed throughout High School. Janet attended Illinois State University for a year and then transferred to the University of Illinois where they married on March 12, 1966 and thereafter continued as best friends and lovers. She was the loving mother of two daughters, Brenda Kirsten Stromborg (Michael Gegare) of Green Bay, WI and Julie Alice (William) Flood of Westerville, OH and grandmother of Callie Marie Flood. She is also survived by her brother, Gerald Everett (Irene Falkenstein) Case of Tucson, AZ. Janet was a breast cancer survivor whose positive outlook and zest for life sustained her through treatment, recovery, and 15 additional years of life.

Janet was a warm and loving person with an insatiable curiosity and passion to share. Her parents instilled her with a love for the natural world through 4H, Scouting, and extensive camping adventures. She elected to be a stay at home mom and devoted herself to her family. At the same time, she revived an interest in tropical fish and became a skilled producer of rare varieties while the family lived in Lansing, MI. She was Ken's best bird hunting buddy and they shared a love of the black labs that joined the family over the years and the most recent Cavalier King Charles spaniel. The family traveled extensively in the U.S. and Canada, including wilderness canoe adventures in Maine and Minnesota. Her artistic talents found expression in a unique style of working with feathers and native plants to produce wall art and decorated egg ornaments. While the family lived briefly in Lubbock, TX, a house guest introduced her to the mountain dulcimer and that changed her life. Ken made her one, then another, and she taught herself to play the oldtime mountain music and bluegrass that fit in perfectly with the music scene in their next location, Bowie, MD. A chance meeting with the leader of the Falling Branch Band started her on a performing career in Maryland that continued after a last move to a rural homesite overlooking Twin Hill Creek near Denmark, WI. She founded the Twin Hill String Band and did the hard business and creative work of wrangling a working band as well as being a superb instrumentalist and harmony vocalist. Janet, Ken, and the other Twinhillers performed throughout eastern Wisconsin for over 30 years. In addition, she taught scores of people to play the instruments she loved, dulcimers, the guitar, and autoharp. Her other creative outlet was through a love of African violets. Her grandmother gave her a violet on a vacation trip to Maine and she brought it back to Maryland in a paper cup. That soon led to dozens more and she mastered the art of growing and then producing her own new hybrids. Her Allegro line of more than 100 varieties was founded on identifying and stabilizing particular interesting traits. This required extensive research into violet genetics and her hybrids are now distributed widely in this country and some internationally. She also administered an internet violet forum for many years.

An informal gathering will be held in the near future to share memories. In lieu of flowers, contributions to the African Violet Society of America Boyce Edens Research Fund or The Nature Conservancy in her name would be appreciated. The family is very grateful for the kindness and care she received from Cardiology Associates and Bellin Health.