Janice Beverly Gnotta's Obituary
Janice Beverly Gnotta, 88, formerly of Minnetonka, MN, Champlin, MN, and Sun City, Arizona, passed away peacefully on February 14, 2024 at The Auberge North Ogden in North Ogden, Utah. Jan was born in Duluth, Minnesota to Adolph and Edna Erickson and was a loving sister to 18 siblings. Jan attended and graduated from Proctor High School where she played clarinet and bassoon, which later fostered her life-long appreciation of a variety of music genres. In 1959, Jan married former high school classmate Charles Gnotta and they raised four daughters together. Jan had an admirable work ethic and spent the majority of her career at General Mills in Golden Valley, MN later retiring from a computer operator position she greatly enjoyed at their James Ford Bell Technical Center. In retirement, Jan frequently wintered with several of her siblings in Destin, Florida, then eventually settled in Sun City, Arizona to enjoy the year-round sunshine and abundance of golf courses. In her later years, Jan rekindled a romance from her high school days with partner Roger Johnson, who shared a home with her in Sun City, Arizona.
Jan held a life-long passion for golf, nature (especially songbirds), reading, leisure walking, and gardening. She was a wonderful home cook and baker, a firm believer in the beauty of late life romances as well as a firm believer in the exuberant joy of climbing favorite trees at any age. Jan was a deeply compassionate soul with a genuine, seemingly limitless capacity to nurture, love, and cherish the family and friends around her. In addition to being a devoted mother to her four daughters, she was a devoted grandmother to three grandsons and a devoted “grandma great” to three great-granddaughters. Her grandsons fondly remember the special sleepovers she hosted with them during their childhood and waking up to her legendary scrambled eggs and bacon breakfasts. They also remember the buckets of bubble gum treats she frequently brought to their youth baseball games for them to share with teammates and her enthusiasm and encouragement as she cheered them on while attending their many youth sports. Jan also gifted her grandsons their first set of junior golf clubs that spurred their own enduring passion for golf well into their adult years. Jan left her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren a precious legacy of compassion and kindness, as well as an active thirst for knowledge and a deep appreciation of nature.
Jan was preceded in death by her daughters Nancy Brecht (Gnotta) and Susan Anderson (Gnotta), great-grandson Vincent Kohl Houck, her parents and several cherished siblings, ex-spouse Charles Gnotta, and partner Roger Johnson. She is survived by daughters Julie Palmer Gnotta (Rick Palmer) and Diane Gnotta, grandsons Alex (Ashley) Houck, Matt (Kara) Houck, and Chaymus Klang, great-granddaughters Rowan, Wren, and Hadley, brothers Tom (Marge) Erickson and David (Sherry) Erickson, and sisters Judy Johnson, Jackie (Dick) Biron, Nita (Pat) Daun, Arlene Thygeson, Connie (Roger) Grumdahl, and Cyndee Erickson, and many nieces and nephews.
The family would like to extend a special thank you to the memory care staff at The Auberge North Ogden, and the Bristol Hospice team who compassionately cared for Jan during her final months in hospice care, as well as to Alissa Dvorak, Community Life & Volunteer Director at The Glenn Minnetonka who always ensured Jan had an excellent nature adventure, theater play or social group outing to look forward to during Jan’s several years of residency there. The immediate family will hold a private, informal celebration of life during April 2024.
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