Back to Janice's LifeWeb

Obituary

Janice Regina Tinbel passed away peacefully from natural causes in her home in Chicago, Illinois on Friday March 14, 2019. Wife of the Scott Tinbel, loving mother of Michelle Lee-Tinbel, and devoted grandmother of Maggie Lee-Tinbel. 


Born and raised in Chicago, Janice graduated from Lane Tech High School. She stayed in the Chicago area to attend Northwestern University where she studied Library and Information Sciences and where she met her husband Scott Tinbel. They married on June 15th, 1956. While at Northwestern she joined Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and continued to be an active soror throughout her life. 


There was nothing that Janice loved more than her work being a librarian. She loved the smell of new and old books. She loved helping children, teens, adults find the knowledge they craved. In 2015, Fran received a lifetime achievement award for the Librarian of the Year from the Chicago Library Association, which was one of the proudest moments of her life.


To her lifelong friends she was known as Jae, to her family she was Jan-Jan, to her grandkids Grandma J. She was a loving and caring mother, grandmother, friend, and soror. Her most profound passion outside of being a Librarian, was cooking; she was a true gourmet, a baker, concocting the most delicious cakes, pies, and her pièce de resistance, cookies. She was well known for her infamous ginger cookies. Janice shared her love of cooking with friends and family. 


She will also be sorely missed by her family, sorority sisters and friends.