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Newspaper articles on Janet.
Services Set For HB Girl, Dead at 17
Funeral services are scheduled Wednesday for 17-year-old Janet Kessell of Huntington Beach who died Saturday of cystic fibrosis. She was graduated in June from Huntington Beach High School and was a member of the board of directors of the Orange County chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Janet follows her 19-year-old sister, Peggy Jo, in death by only six months. Peggy also died of Cystic Fibrosis.
The girls were daughters of Mr and Mrs Archie Kessell of Huntington Beach. Janet is also survived by a brother, Bradley of Los Angeles and grandparents Mr and Mrs John Lasister of Clinton, Mo., and Mr and Mrs Harry Bickley of Kansas City, Mo. The Rev. Archie Miller will preside at funeral services at Pierce Brothers Smiths’ Funeral Chapel at 1:30 p.m. Entombment will follow at Pacific View Memorial Park, Newport Beach. The family suggests that contributions be made in Janet’s name to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
HB Sisters Shared Tragic Life Of No Tomorrows
By Rod Speer, Register Staff Writer
Huntington Beach—Peggy and Janet Kessell, teen-age sisters who shared a deadly heritage, had to live their lives as if there was no tomorrow. Because, for them, there wasn’t. Seventeen-year-old Janet’s funeral was Wednesday. Her life-long struggle with cystic fibrosis ended last weekend, only six months after her older sister died at the age of 19. According to their parents, Archie and Jo Anne Kessell, the two blonde-haired, brown-eyed girls tried to live their lives as if they did not have cystic fibrosis. “They wanted to be normal like everybody else. They didn’t want to become an invalid,” said Mrs. Kessell. When classmates would ask Janet why she coughed so much, she would say she had an illness similar to asthma, her mother said. “They didn’t want to have any pity,” she continued, and they would tell no one but their closest friends how serious their conditions were. “They knew they didn’t have much time as adults,” said Mr. Kessell and their goals were not long range. Peggy, who had a boyfriend when she died last winter, had hoped to get married and was not preparing for a career, according to her mother.
Janet, who had graduated from high school in June, was planning to attend Orange Coast College and become a medical secretary. Janet never had any boyfriends “but was looking forward to that,” Mrs. Kessell said. Living normally was not easy for the girls, who both weighed less than 80 pounds and stood under five feet tall having the characteristic frail stature of cystic fibrosis victims. The Kessell family moved from mile-high Denver 10 years ago to Huntington Beach to relieve symptoms of the respiratory disease that were aggravated by the altitude. The girls’ parents daily spent at least two hours with each girl working to rid their lungs of the mucous that makes breathing difficult and allows disease to spread through the body quickly. Each girl had frequent bouts with pneumonia and lost at least two or three weeks of school each year, Mrs. Kessell said. Strenuous physical activity was impossible and they would rest most of the day to be ready for a party or night-on-the-town, Mrs. Kessel. The girls took about 40 pills a day, mostly strong antibiotics, and slept each night more than 10 hours under a mist tent to aid their breathing.
According to their parents, most of the girls’ friends were nurses at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County or with the county’s Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The girls were volunteers with the foundation and both Janet and her mother had been members of the organization’s board of directors. Seventeen-year-old Lisa McNeil had known Janet since seventh grade. “We were real close. She was about the best friend I ever had,” she said.
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Michael Geiger
Janet passed away shortly after we graduated from cystic fibrosis. She had an older sister who passed away just a few months before of the same disease. Although I only knew her for a brief time, she left a lasting impression. She was very friendly, inteligent and courageous. Rest in peace Janet.Louis Gonzales
I knew janet , it was a wonderfull girl , God bless you.