Janet M. Kingdom

Janet Kingdom succumbed to cancer Wednesday evening, October 4, 2023 at Presidential Oaks Nursing Home in Concord, New Hampshire. She was 92 years old.

Born Janet Marie McMillen on September 8, 1931 in Quasqueton, Buchanan County, Iowa, she was the only daughter of Miller and Marie (Chesmore) McMillen. Janet was raised in Quasqueton and graduated from Quasqueton High School in 1948. She attended the University of Northern Iowa until she met teaching intern, Ralph H. Bartlett. They were married June 7, 1950 in Janet’s hometown of Quasqueton. During their years of marriage, they had a son while living in Iowa City, and a second son while living in Saint Louis, Missouri. They then moved to Colorado, living for a brief time in Littleton before settling in Boulder where Janet went back to school at the University of Colorado and followed her dream of becoming a teacher.

On August 2, 1965, Janet married U.S. Army officer Jeffrey H. Kingdom in El Paso, Texas. Now a military family, Janet, Jeff and her sons moved to El Paso, where she worked as a seventh grade English teacher. In 1967, they moved to Seoul, South Korea, followed shortly after by Wurtzburg and Butzbach, Germany, where they had a daughter together. When Jeff was stationed in Vietnam, Janet moved with the kids to the Bangor, Maine. Upon his return to the United States, they moved to Florida, Texas, and Michigan, before finally returning to Colorado in 1976 after his retirement from the army. Janet and Jeff, who was a certified horologist, opened an antique clock repair shop, “The Clockworks” in Niwot, and began to sell the collection of antique German and Austrian clocks they had amassed a decade earlier. In 1988 Jeff was hired as an accountant by the University of Maryland to teach accounting to American troops in Europe. He and Janet spent seven more years living in various towns in Germany and Italy. They returned to the United States permanently in 1995, relocating to Oceanside, California. Pursuing their shared lifelong passions for music, Janet and Jeff, who was a very talented drummer, organized multiple jazz and swing bands in the San Diego area, and eventually Las Vegas, where they also lived.

            Janet was predeceased by her father, Miller in 1994, mother, Marie in 1998, and her husband Jeff in 2003. She is survived by three children: Jeff Bartlett and his wife, Maura Weston of Concord, New Hampshire, Jerry Bartlett and his wife, Denise of Seattle, Washington, and Jan Kingdom of Paris, France; four grandchildren: Ted Bartlett and his wife, Tiffany Arnone of Seattle, Maeve Bartlett of Washington, D.C., Jeffrey Bartlett and Will Bartlett; and two great-grandchildren: Ella and Sophie Bartlett.

A Celebration of Life for family was held Monday afternoon, October 9, 2023 at the home of Jeff Bartlett and Maura Weston.