Janet Rose Pettys

Janet Rose Pettys passed away on Feb. 9, 2021, in Longview, Washington.

A compassionate heart, one who shows understanding for people who are suffering!

Janet Rose Pettys passed away on Feb. 9, 2021, in Longview, Washington. Janet was born in Longview in 1943 to Kenneth and Dorothy Bolin. Janet graduated from Kelso High School in 1961, after which she attended nurses training at Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland, Oregon. She met Gary Osborn in 1962, and they married 1965. They divorced and Janet moved back to Kelso. Her good friend Joyce Alston introduced her to Donald Pettys, and they were later married.

Janet knew that her compassion and love of caring for others was her calling and found that she was especially good at medical transcription, often saying medical terms like she was reciting the alphabet. She was a medical transcriptionist for more than 30 years. She worked at numerous medical offices in Longview as well as St. Johns (Peace Health) and Monticello Hospital during the 1980s. During the 1990s, she relocated to Happy Camp, California when Donald took a sawyer job for a timber company located in the remote Siskiyou Mountains. As timber mills continued to shut down, Janet and Don moved to Ashland and Medford, Oregon before finally retiring in Vancouver, Wahington.

After Donald’s death in 2000, Janet moved to Aberdeen, Washington to be closer to her daughter Lori and family. She was the first senior recipient of a Habitat for Humanity home which she and her family helped build through many sweat equity hours. She lived in Aberdeen until 2012 after which she moved to Snohomish County for a few years, then back to Longview to be closer to her son Wendell and her siblings.

Janet was preceded in death by her parents, her husbands, her sister Patsy DeClue, and sister-in-law Eileen Bolin. She is survived by her brother Mike (Anita) Bolin, her sister Leslie (Jim) Croney, her children Wendell Osborn and Lori (Tom) Laufmann, her step-children: Lisa (José) Ramirez, Rena (Frank) Brewer, Beccie (Wendell) Bunch and Gary Mattson; her grandchildren: Casey, Colin and Chelsea Laufmann as well as numerous step-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins.

A memorial service to honor her life will be held at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in the Fellowship Hall, Longview Washington on March 13, 2021 at 1 p.m.