In Memoriam: Janet Loring

Dr. Janet Loring, professor emeriti and a revered figure in the theatre and academic community, passed away on July 3, 2024, in Fresno. She was 98. A celebration of her life will take place at 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, at The Terraces at San Joaquin Gardens, 5555 N. Fresno Street.

Loring was born on March 2, 1926, in Kansas City, Missouri, to Elizabeth Gleason and Edward d’Arcy Loring. Growing up, she split her time with her mother in Kansas City and summers with her father in Chicago. 

She received a B.S. in speech from Northwestern University near Chicago and her M.A. in theatre from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. She earned her Ph.D. in theatre history from the University of Iowa.

After spending a summer as an assistant to Dr. S. I. Hayakawa at the University of Hawaii, Loring joined the Department of Theatre and Dance faculty at Fresno State in 1957. While at Fresno State she was the driving force behind the Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) program launch and directed at least a dozen productions that toured the Valley’s elementary schools and played on campus.

“Dr. Loring is the reason our dedication to Theatre for Young Audiences is so strong at Fresno State,” said J. Daniel Herring, professor of theatre and director. “She was the backbone of that program over 60 years ago, and she fought to make it an integral part of our programming. Her advocacy for high-quality theatre for young people and the importance of drama education in our schools made Dr. Loring an asset to our department even after her retirement. In my 17 years at Fresno State, I enjoyed my many conversations with Dr. Loring about TYA and I will miss her and those talks.”

Dr. Honora Chapman, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, said, “Dr. Loring made a profound impact on generations of Fresno State students, who fondly remember her decades later. Her Theatre colleagues and all of us are very grateful for the legacy she left in creating and then supporting Theatre for Young Audiences, a program that continues to delight and inspire children and adults around the Valley.”

 In 1967, Loring was named “Outstanding Educator of the Year” by District Seven of the Parks and Recreation Society. She retired from Fresno State in 1995 and was granted emeriti status. 

In the final years of her life, Loring wrote two books with plans to publish them through The Press at California State University, Fresno. Her first book, “The Mysterious Song of Me” is a scrapbook-style autobiography that she described as a “woman’s quest for fulfillment in rough times.” The second book, “Au Contraire: Jots and Shots,” is a collection of musings, photos and art. Both books were in the final stages of completion when Janet passed and are expected to be published soon. 

Loring is survived by her brother John Robbins Loring, step-sister China Ibsen Oughton, niece Claudia Loring, nephews Alexander Loring and Benjamin Havrilak and a long list of close friends, many of which were her former students.

Perhaps it’s best for Janet Loring to tell you about her life in her own words. Before her passing, she wrote the following reflection:

Time has been good to me.  It has given me a trunk full of memories, but few friends are left standing to reminisce or summarize my days.  So this is a letter of sorts to my friends and colleagues who might want to remember times together and learn about me many long years ago.

My birthplace was Kansas City, Missouri on March 2, 1926.  My mother was Elizabeth Gleason (Betty), a pretty, funny, artistic, dear flapper of the twenties who grew up to be a teacher of the hard of hearing.  My immigrant, dear dad, Edward d’Arcy Loring (Ted), was a dashing Yorkshire man, a talented artist, and an insurance CEO.  His roving eye and seven marriages soured his three children on the joys of holy matrimony.

As a child, I was forever dying.  I had meningitis, scarlet fever, measles (both kinds), mumps (both sides), chicken pox, and whooping cough, add in the usual colds, tummy upsets, and sore throats.  I lay for weeks in a darkened room, hands wrapped to keep from scratching.  Friends left food at the door which had a great red sign saying Quarantine, Do Not Enter!  At age 4, after scarlet fever, I had to learn to walk again.  Years later, I managed to fight off pneumonia, mono, hip and knee replacements, and nearly a death by drowning: The anchor rope of my boat caught on my ring and pulled me off the boat and deep underwater.  It was a night on the Delta with the tide coming in, yet somehow, I managed to get free and climb back on board.

Growing up, I wintered with Mother in K.C., Mo., and summered in Chicago, Ill with Dad.  I’ve stayed weeks, months, or years in Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Iowa, Georgia, Hawaii, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, and California.  I’ve cruised to Alaska and through the Panama Canal; visited Europe three times; flown on the Concorde and sailed on the QE2; cruised on the Lurline, Grotte Beer, and the Masdam among others; lived a year in Paris; bicycled around France; walked over the tip top of the Pont du Gard, above the channel, which scared everybody but me; enjoyed the driving range at St. Andrews; swimming in both oceans; surfboarding in Hawaii; ice-skating in K.C.; boating and fishing on the Delta, the San Joaquin River, Millerton, and Upper Holland Lake in Montana.

Four grade schools and two high schools instructed me before Northwestern where I joined Chi Omega and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Speech.  I was granted my Master of Arts in Theater from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.  The University of Iowa awarded me a Ph. D. in Theater History.  Post-doctorate, I spent a summer at the University of Hawaii as an assistant to Dr. S. I. Hayakawa.  Famous classmates and overwhelming competition at N.U.- Cloris Leachman, Paul Lynde, Charlotte Rae, Patricia Neal.  Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, gave our graduation address; Duke Ellington played at the senior ball.  Notable mentors from whom I learned so much and tried to pass along to my students: Prof. Alvina Krause, renowned acting coach; Prof. Winifred Ward, founder of the Children’s Theater movement; Prof. Lew Sarrett; Imagist poet; Town Hall lecturer; Dr. William Reardon, author, theatre history; Dr. S. I. Hayakawa, author, Pres. Of Cal., U.S. Senator; Dr. E. C. Mabie, Federal Theatre; Dr. John Newfield, director of the Vienna State Opera and Stage Manager for Max Reinhardt.

Between a lemonade stand and Fresno State, I was a camp counselor; dish washer; mail clerk; radio actress and music librarian; Pat Stevens model, site finder and makeup artist for a commercial film company; rancher; dog and horse breeder; and boater.  I babysat at nursery schools; taught speech, drama, and directed in high schools; taught interpretation and Northwestern; as a graduate fellow, designed costumes at Iowa (one for iconic Jean Seberg); taught speech, designed sets and costumes at Agnes Scott; taught acting at the University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg.  At California State University, Fresno, I taught everything but tech and directing.  In 1967, I was named Outstanding Educator of the Year by District Seven of the Parks and Recreation Society.  I served on the Fresno County Planning Commission and was its Chair in 1992.

Family ties to Ruth Warrick enabled me to bring her to the campus to star in The Matchmaker.  Mentor Dr. Hayakawa answered my request to come as a guest lecturer.  The children’s theatre program at Fresno State was started under my direction.  We played to full houses in the Woods and the John Wright Theaters.  Booklets sent to teachers prepared their classrooms for the plays.  There was a poster contest for plays held on campus.  The winner was awarded a book.  Our venues were varied: We had puppet plays and storytelling on the mall; Mr. Pink, a clown (a.k.a. Yo Yo usually played by the redoubtable Dan Pessano, a.k.a Son), entertained on the mall as well.  He also visited Storyland and the Armstrong Rubber Company.  We played at department stores and the Convention Center.  We toured to Coalinga and Dinuba and, of course, many schools.  For several years, as well, I was co-director of Teens Terrific, a talent contest for Fresno’s High schoolers.

As I look back over my thirty-eight years at Fresno State, I realize once again how lucky I was to have such wonderful, bright, and talented students: who they were and are, what they have accomplished, their successes, and how they have withstood misfortunes.  I enjoyed so much their visits in later years.  As a director, I was blessed with an exceptional talent pool.  My casts, all of them, were not only talented but dedicated and industrious, enjoyable and fun.  Maybe you remember: Children’s Theater: Peter Pan, Dancing Princesses, The Bremen Town Musicians, Mr. Pink Hoes the Rows, The Clown Who Ran Away, Reynard the Fox, Little Women, Robin Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows, Cinderella, Mr. Pink and Gussie Give a Party.  Main season: The Twin Menaechmi, The Miser, Medea, The Rose Tattoo, Indians, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Matchmaker, The Madwoman of Chaillet, A Different Moon, and Blithe Spirit.

During my many years, there were, of course, private times: cotillions; softball in Swope Park with a handsome Navy Airforce officer; three times a bridesmaid- to Twila, Ginny, and Dottie- and affairs of the heart.  There were I think some four proposals, all from really fine men.  Two standout: One was more than awkward: A nice young man on a surprise visit to Northwestern from the University of Kansas walked in on my makeup class when were learning to put on beards.  A fully bearded, unrecognizable me was a jaw-dropping surprise to him, but, bless his heart, he was not deterred.  Then to another, my answer was a happy, yes. He was a dear man, so good-looking and prodigiously talented, but sadly, he fell in love with another.  Heartbreak wounds the soul but you move on.  And yet, how often do we wonder, like Frost, about the road not taken?  He died a couple of years ago. I was so sad, yet it was clear from the article about him that the road I reluctantly had taken was after all the best for me.

Photography has always fascinated me.  I placed with several photos at the fair and other pictures hang in the café at Brighton Crest.  I designed the first scorecard there which carried a picture of mine of the course on its cover.  Other pictorial challenges came in computer design when I worked as a designer for a friend of many years, Jan Young and her Show-Off Company.  Designs for the women’s Club to Club tournament at Brighton Crest for the last sixteen years were a happy challenge.

And there were sports—oh, how I loved them—the movement, the striving to excel, the team spirit.  Surely a sign of things to come, as a kindergartener, I was always the first to be selected on a Red Rover team and the last to be asked to come over.  I could beat most of the kids on the block when it came to sledding down the hill belly-buster on my amazing Flexible Flyer.  Hopscotch was cinch.  At 13, I swam three miles across Cayuga Lake, a major accomplishment.  At Northwestern, I was all-star in basketball (at 5’10” what else), softball and field hockey.  I won the Women’s Athletic Association Cup for athletic ability, spirit service, and scholarship.  At the other end of life, it was golf.  That maddening game gave me a magical moment.  At age 82, I got a hole-in-one on the #2 hole at Brighton Crest, with a #2 Taylor Made ball, on July 2.  Which brings us back to where I began—the first lucky 2, March 2nd. Of course, I don’t know the date as you read this.  Is it another 2?  But I do know that it is time to exit- USC, I trust.  

My survivors include my brother, an accomplished and gifted man- John Robbins Loring of New York, West Palm Beach, and Copenhagen; a step-sister, China Ibsen Oughton of Dwight, Ill; a niece and nephew, Claudia and Alexander Loring of Berlin, Germany, and a new nephew Benjamin Havrilak from the Ukraine but quite grown up and handsome, now of New York and West Palm Beach; dear, dear friend and so talented Jeff Young, (a.k.a. Pink Shrink) In a while crocodile, Love ya’; his uncle Bill Young (dear Robin) whose visits from Paris were so very special; Bonnie Westmore who became trusted and loving family; Kay Howard Barney, a friend with the longest tenure because our mothers were pregnant with us at the same time; kindergarten through high school pal, Twila Pollard and other high schoolers- Virginia Thomas, Rosemary Day, Alyce MacMahon; golfing gals who gave me a hard time on the course, but whose help was generous beyond measure: Linda Rundquist, Linda Findley, Donna Slinger, Caryl Sandall, and Karen Cornell, and behind the scenes husbands Blake, Bob, Craig, Frank, and Bill; and I cannot forget the unforgettables, students who stayed in touch through emails and visits- Dan Pessano, Barbara Sellers, Lisa Gunn, Marie Cheek, Bob Westenberg, Bill Westenberg, Dan Carrion, Hank Webb, Jacquie Antaramian, Terry Burns, Larry Smith; and, finally, that noblest group of all, my dedicated colleagues who survived complicated years of dreary faculty meetings and difficult rehearsals, yet amazingly we remained friends: Ron Johnson, Guss and Berniece Graham, Dan Carrion, Terry Miller, Ruth Griffin, and Frances Levin.

So this is it, my friends.  Thank you for being there, sharing patio visits, shopping, parties, golf, happy hours, luncheons, Halloween cackles, Thanksgiving dinners, classes, shows, and so much more.  Many days you made me laugh. Other times you gave me a strong hand across a painful stretch of days.  I was the better for having you as part of my life, so many good and wonderful hours and days.  It’s not only the life that matters, but the courage you bring to it, the friends you gather, and the happy memories you leave behind in their safekeeping.  May your health be good, your days joyful, and your life long.

Much love to each and all- as always.  Toodle-oo.  J.