KENNETH LEE AND JANICE LEE (CREW) McCOMAS
by Rosalee Crew Horton

It does not seem possible Jan and Ken are both gone. Younger than I, it seemed a long time coming that Jan and I would have anything in common. After we were both married and had children, we became better friends. Jim and Ken had farming in common, although there were some differences of opinion. The main difference came early in the morning. Jim has always been an early riser, and Ken and Sis would stay up late and sleep in the next day.

As I told in my story, Jan was five years younger than I. She was born December 28, 1940, and we didn't relate to each other much as she was growing up. However, we did have our moments. I told about the swing on which we had so much fun. When she was seven or eight years old, we lived on what was called the London Property, which ran from the corner of Jefferson and Adams street — a full block to the alley. Eunice Stickler and her daughter, Janiece, were our neighbors to the south. Jan loved animals and we had several dogs and a cat. Each time something happened to one pet, another took its place. However, Jan never could understand why we could not put up a shed on all that land and have a pony.
After Janice graduated from high school, she took a job in the income tax division of the state office. The irony of the situation was that she worked with three girls who were deaf. When Kellie, who was deaf, came along later, Janice already knew quite a bit of sign language.

Janice and Ken were married June 17, 1962, and she continued to commute to Des Moines for a few years. As I told in Jim's and my story, Jan and Ken had four children: Scott, who died of a rare disease at the age of one and a half; Kellie was born deaf, Douglas Warren was stillborn; and Martin James (Marty) was adopted.

Scott Lee McComas was born March 21, 1963, with a condition called Herschbaum disease. It was named for the doctor who discovered it. It happens as a set of nerves do not form and grow on the intestine (rectum) to allow the baby to eliminate. Scott had three surgeries the first five days of his precious life. Because of the colostrium bandage on his abdomen, he could not crawl, so Sis set him in an aluminum pie pan and he soon learned to scoot it across the floor. He had a short and painful life. At 1 1/2 years, he had a viral infection he could not survive.

On August 19, 1965, Kellie was born and hers, too, is a story of its own. She was a very quiet baby, crying only when she was hungry or wet, but we became suspicious when she did not react to a loud noise, and noise did not waken her. When she was a few months old, Jan, took her to a hearing/speech center in Des Moines. After much testing, the doctors diagnosed her as deaf.

We aren't sure of Kellie's age when eventually the doctors knew she did hear very high pitched sounds. The family knew because when she was excited or upset, she would shout or scream with a very shrill voice. Oh, yes! We knew she was upset! Her sounds would let us know. Kellie could also pout and tears ran down her cheeks.

Kellie was three years old when Martin James, Marty, was adopted and brought home as a one-month old baby. Kellie had been given all the attention for three years, the apple of every one's eye. Now she had to learn to share the attention. We have a picture of four generations —the babies, Kellie and Marty, Jan and Ken, the Crews, and Great Grandma Main — Little Kellie with her chin in her hands, leaning on a chair arm with tears streaming down her cheeks. She soon got over the new baby problem and loved "little brother."

Kellie also loved pets — the kittens, dogs and horses especially. She was eight or nine years old when a mother cat brought her kittens a small rabbit for them to eat. Kellie was very upset as the cats were fed cat food and she could not understand why the cats would eat a baby rabbit. Her folks had a lot of explaining to do.

As Kellie grew close to five years old, Jan knew she had to prepare all of us, especially Dad Ken, for sending Kellie to Council Bluffs School for the Deaf. We all knew Kellie had to have an education, and the schools in our area were not set up to have an interpreter in the classroom. Sis (Jan) took care of what she knew she had to do. Kellie would be driven to the school on Sunday afternoon. She would attend school all week and be bussed home on Friday evening. She had her own room at school and for several months it was very hard to open the car door for Kellie to get out and slam the door behind her. We always walked her to her room but it was a teary walk back to the car, our backs toward Kellie.

She was always in the top 1/4 th of her class and did all the extra-curricular, fun things for kids to do. She sang in the deaf choir and at one time entertained at the Osceola Catholic Church. She also was a cheerleader. In her senior year, she was "Miss Deaf Iowa." She learned the three ways to communicate required before a deaf student could graduate. (1) American sign language, (2) a second signing I don't remember; and (3) also using a hand-written method to write notes. She also learned (with Uncle Jim's help) to communicate with her pony, Cloudy, outgrew him and had a larger horse, Poco, a P.O.A (Ponies of America). She attended horse shows and won ribbons. When the Judge told the ring man what he wanted the horses to do, and he related the instructions to the riders, Kellie's girl friend would stand on the sideline and sign them to Kellie.

Kellie was in her pre-teen years (eight to ten perhaps) when surgeons decided they would not be able to correct her problem, and she was fitted with hearing aids in both ears. She did not like wearing them at all! Sis and Ken were hoping she would become accustomed to them but Kellie may have found the solution to the problem. It happened on our Christmas Party Night. Ken had the fireplace fired up as we had been cooking hot dogs, and after presents were opened, the papers were burned. Well, Sis didn't miss the aids until it was time to put them away for the night. We all looked and searched for a long time. The aids were never found and the consensus was that Kellie had found a way to permanently be rid of them. She never wore aids again.

When it came time to think about more education, her mother stated, she will go to Washington, D.C. Gualadette College for the Deaf. She already had a background in computers and would further her education to educate deaf people in that course. She has done so in Washington State College for several years. She also learned to drive a car.

Her first husband, Paul Le Drew, from Newfoundland, whom she met at the college, is also deaf. They had a daughter, Nikki Marie, on August 21, 1985; so she will be 23 in 2008. She hears. She in her third year of college. Kellie's second husband, deaf also, is from Washington State. They also had a daughter, Morgan Eloise, so named for Grandma Crew's middle name. Morgan hears also. She will be 17 years old on September 8, 2008. They will all be flying to Des Moines and drive to Osceola to visit for Labor Day weekend August 29, 2008. We haven't seen them since Kellie's father, Ken, died in the spring of 2004.

Douglas Warren McComas was stillborn in 1968, after which Janice was advised against having any more children. Jan and Ken were both very generous in caring for people or animals needing help. They became foster parents for some years after Kellie started to school. One girl lives in Union County and came to family visitation. Their Japanese Foreign Exchange Student also came. She had married a Chinese fellow and they live in Des Moines. Sis and Ken also made a home for an adult young man who was having a hard time. He has since maried and has grandchildren in Osceola. Other evidence of her caring is that, if Jan came upon an injured animal (usually a small dog) on her way from work, she would stop and take it to the vet, or take it home to care for it there until she could find it a home. We had one such animal.

Janice went to work in the County at several different jobs. She worked for John Stearns, when he was Sheriff, as the mobile radio operator. She was secretary and radio operator for Steve Niebur, when he was Police Chief, and Enid Kendall in the County Recorder's Office.

Ken attended the University of Iowa for two years, and enlisted in the peace time Army in Europe for a period of time. He brought back some beautiful slides of where he had been, and his mother a set of dishes. This was before he and Jan were married. He also drove a United Van Lines truck along with farming at that time of year. After they were married and moved into town, he worked at the carwash on the highway.

When Jan passed away in 2001, at the age of 60, she had bone cancer in her back, after having been a breast cancer survivor for five years. Kenneth had Sleep Apnea for years and used a sleep machine. He also fought leg problems most of his life and was in the hospital several times with heat on his leg to dissolve blood clots. He was lost after Jan passed away, and his leg problems worsened. In 2004, he died from prostate cancer and a serious heart attack They are both missed so much!

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Last Revised October 15, 2014