Janice M. Harste died of vascular dementia in the Memory Unit  at Anderson Oaks Nursing Home in Conway, South Carolina on September 22, 2021.  Born in Towson, Maryland, the daughter of George and Martha Dansberger, Janice was preceded in death by two siblings, Ray Dansberger (Baltimore) and Carolyn Dansberger (Myrtle Beach).  Janice leaves behind her husband (Jerome Harste, Bloomington), her two children and their spouses, Jason and Mary Harste (Denver) and Alison and Jefferson Schuler (Cincinnati), four grandchildren (Ben & Ella Harste [twins, age 16], Terribithia [17] and Peter Schuler [15]) in addition to two siblings, Russell Dansberger (Washington, D.C.) and Ellen Edwards (Charleston, SC).

Janice began her working life as a private secretary in the offices of the Organization of American States in Washington D.C., joined the Peace Corps as a volunteer secretary in the Santa Cruz, Bolivia office, and finished her secretarial career as department secretary in the School of Geology at Indiana University.  In between secretarial gigs and raising her family, Janice earned her undergraduate degree at Indiana University, created a pre-school program for 3- and 4-year-old children, and started a children's book publishing company called Inquiring Voices Press.

Throughout her life Janice was actively involved with the Girl Scouts.  While a Peace Corps volunteer, she started the first Girl Scout troop in Bolivia and later became a Girl Scout leader for the Southern Indiana District of the Girl Scouts.

Janice devoted much of her life to supporting her husband's work in education, often playing private secretary as well as copy editor and proofer for his many publications. While her husband maintained that he found her swinging from a vine in Bolivia (they met in the Peace Corps), Janice maintained that before her husband asked her to marry her, he checked her teeth and gave her a spelling test.  Janice's biting humor and no-nonsense approach to life will be sorely missed by family and friends.

A celebration of life will be held in Bloomington, Indiana at a later date to be announced.  In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to the Alzheimer's Association or the IU Foundation in support of the Harste Alternative Literacies Fellowship.