Latest / GlowInto / The Story of Janine Lange
Transcript
- Jen: Welcome to the Glow and Two Podcast. What happens when you've spent so much of your life caring for others and you finally make room for something that has always belonged to you? For Janine Lang, writing was there long before she called herself an author. It lived alongside raising a family, building a career, and facing moments that asked more of her than she could have imagined. Now she's claiming that part of herself, and an old family photograph is opening another door. Inviting her to discover the people and places behind the story she grew up with. Today's story is Janine Lang Part one an author's voice and a journey to Italy. These are the women of Glowin' two. There is a photograph Janine Lang has returned to again and again. Taken in Italy in 1957, it shows a group of relatives gathered on a balcony with a mountain rising behind them. Janine recognizes her grandfather and knows the woman beside him was his sister. The other faces, the exact location, and the story held inside the frame were once a mystery. Janine calls it the balcony picture. When Janine told me about listening to her grandfather's stories, I thought of my own family. My mother is fully Italian and my great grandparents came from Italy to America in their early teens. When I was little, my grandparents and great grandparents all lived on the same corner block in Lebanon, Illinois. I moved between their houses, sometimes spending the night, often waiting in a kitchen while someone got ready for the day or cooked a meal. In those ordinary stretches of time, they told me about my great grandparents' lives in Italy and the siblings they had known there. My grandmother told me how she and my grandfather met and courted. I can still picture my great grandmother making homemade pasta, my grandmother at the stove, and the meals we shared between their tables. Those memories came back as Janine and I talked. I recognized the gift of growing up close enough to older generations to hear their stories in their own voices, and the wish years later that I had asked them even more. For Janine, the balcony picture quietly asked a question Who were those people and what part of their own story had been left behind with them? Now, more than half a century after the photograph was taken, Janine is preparing to stand on the balcony herself. She and her daughter will travel to Italy, meet relatives they only recently discovered, and recreate the image that helped lead them there. The trip may look like a return to the past, but Janine's story has never been about looking backward for nostalgia's sake. It is about understanding what we carry forward, our family strength, sacrifices, traditions, and stories, and what can be lost when no one takes the time to preserve them. For Janine, that work began with her grandfather. Did you know October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month? Have you noticed the purple ribbons tied around town? They're a reminder to support survivors, recognize abuse, and help build safer communities. According to the CDC, more than one in three American women have experienced physical violence, sexual violence involving contact, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime. You can help locally. Join the Running Towards Peace 5K Run and Walk in O'Fallon on October 10th at 8 a.m. Registration is $35 per participant. Then gather your friends for Ladies' Night Out at Bellevue Ballroom in Belleville, Illinois on November 5th, 6 to 9 p.m., supporting the Violence Prevention Center. Visit VPCSW.org for resources and event information for immediate support. Call their twenty four hour crisis hotline at six one eight two three five zero eight nine two. You deserve safety, respect, and support, and you're not alone. He told her about his life, his family, and the love story that brought him and Janine's grandmother together. Because he lived with them, the stories did not reach Janine through a family tree or collection of dates. She heard them from the man who lived them. Their bond was immediate. Janine's mother kept a home movie of her grandfather seeing Janine after she came home from the hospital, tears filling his blue eyes. They planted his garden, strung beans, and grated fresh cheese together on New Year's Eve while Parents went out. Janine stayed up with him cooking sausage and roasting chestnuts. When family members gathered to play cards, he saved the change so the two of them could roll the coins together. He was also her most constant source of affection. He was a hugger, she remembers. Janine's parents belonged to a stricter, less demonstrative generation. Her grandfather held her hand, pulled her close, and let her fall asleep on his lap during car rides home from visiting relatives. His beard scratched her face when he hugged her, and she loved it. When he died shortly after Janine began high school, she lost far more than a grandfather. She lost the person who had made her feel safest, the center around which her extended family revolved. And all the noise stopped, she says. The Sunday gatherings faded, she saw her cousins left often, and the man who held everyone together was gone. Janine did what she had instinctively done since childhood. She wrote. She wrote about missing him, just as she had once written about rainy days, movies, and changing leaves. And at the time, she did not think of writing as a career. It was simply an extension of who she was and the place to put what she could not bear to lose. Janine says she loved writing from a young age. The impulse began long before she had a profession attached to it. Her grandfather gave her stories to carry, and writing gave her a way to keep him close. after he was gone. Janine married at nineteen and became the mother of three daughters. The lessons she had absorbed around that crowded kitchen table shaped the home she wanted to create. There's nothing more important than family, she told her husband. She wanted to be the one raising their children, even if staying home required sacrifice and creativity. She sewed clothing, curtains and prom dresses, she baked cookies and homemade bread for school lunches, And when money was tied at Christmas, she found ways to make the tree look full and the day feel abundant. Her daughters remember their traditions, not the limitations. One of those traditions began the year Janine's youngest daughter was born on Christmas Day. Already in labor, Janine worried that her two older daughters would not have a special breakfast. So she made cinnamon bread before leaving to have the baby. The following Christmas, one daughter asked whether she was going to be making Sharon bread again. A frantic, practical act of love became the family's annual Christmas bread, and a small example of what Janine had come to understand about family history traditions are often born before anyone realizes they are creating one. Her three daughters are grown now, part of the older millennial generation. Janine speaks with pride about the different paths they have taken. Jennifer works in advertising leadership, Melissa is a writer, and Sharon is a teacher in Vermont. The girls who grew up with the homemade bread and the handmade dresses had built lives of their own, carrying pieces of the home Genevieve made for them. Join me on Glow Intel this October. We have a Halloween theme planned with ghosting after forty on the fourteenth, being a witch and setting boundaries on the eighteenth, and the monster in the mirror, aging and the woman you see now on the twenty eighth. I'm choosing two guests per conversation. Everyday women are welcome, no business or brand is required, and the deadlines are approaching, so email Jennifer Joyner at glow and two dot com. Tell me which episode interests you and why. Let's glow and tell. Her daughters were older and in college, Janine began searching for meaningful work. She answered a newspaper advertisement for a respite worker with a hospice organization. The position involved staying with patients so their families could work, shop, or simply step away for a short time. The word that caught Janine's attention was family. She became particularly close to one woman whose condition continued to decline. When Janine realized the woman needed more physical care, Than she was trained to provide, she earned her certification as a nursing assistant. She remained with the family for more than a year until the woman passed. Afterward, the woman's daughter told Janine that she would make a wonderful nurse. Janine took it as a sign. She had been away from school for 25 years. At 45, she completed her prerequisites and applied to a highly competitive nursing program. Out of 195 applicants, only 32 would be admitted. Janine took the nursing entrance exam and earned a 94. Still worried that it was not high enough. She took it again and earned a 96. She began nursing school at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming in August of two thousand five, entering the program as its oldest student and one of its few non traditional ones. Many classmates already had medical backgrounds as EMTs or surgical technicians. Janine arrived with her nursing assistant experience, a deep sense of purpose, and And no intention of letting her age decide what she could do. Then just weeks into the program, she realized she could hear her instructor, but she could no longer see her clearly. In October of two thousand five, doctors discovered a brain tumor pressing against her optic nerve. As the tumor grew, her vision deteriorated, She needed surgery immediately. Janine's response captured the resolve that had already carried her into the classroom. I'm in nursing school, I don't have time for a brain tumor, she says. She asked to finish her final exams before surgery. By then, light caused severe pain and her sight was nearly gone. One instructor sat with her in a dark closet, shining a flashlight on the questions and reading them aloud so Janine could answer. She completed her finals and went directly from school to the hospital. The tumor was removed in December of two thousand five. What if feeling better started with looking at the whole you? At Thriving Willow Coaching, Allison Tyndall helps women create healthier, more sustainable lives through a whole person approach to wellness. From navigating midlife changes to building better habits around nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, and everyday life, Allison helps women move away from the all-or-nothing mindset and toward changes they can actually maintain. Because your health isn't just one number, it's your energy. Your strength, your confidence, your habits, and your life. Balance resilience, whole person, health. Discover thriving willow coaching with Alison Tyndall and start building a healthier life that works for the woman you are now. Allison is a glow-in-to- longevity partner. The surgery removed the tumor, but Janine's medical crisis was far from over. Shortly afterwards, she awoke in the middle of the night with crushing pain. Blood clots had traveled to her lungs, a life threatening complication following surgery. She spent another week in intensive care and another week in the hospital removing the tumor had also affected her pituitary function. Her body could no longer regulate essential hormones normally. She entered immediate menopause. Developed thyroid complications, struggled to regulate her temperature, and lost the hormonal response that helps the body manage stress. She returned to nursing school with almost no stamina and only days to prepare for clinical work. The director of nursing urged her to quit, concerned that Janine's fragile health made her a liability. Janine refused. I am 46 years old, she told her. This is my last shot. They reached an agreement Janine could begin with less physically demanding clinical assignments while rebuilding her strength. Even then her body sometimes betrayed her. During one surgical observation she began to overheat beneath her protective clothing and felt close to passing out. Her fellow nursing students helped her out of the room and onto a cold floor where she began to cool down and recover. Their care did not end there. They recorded lectures, recorded. brought meals and helped clean her house while she regained her strength. Janine was determined to finish nursing school and the women beside her were determined to help her get there. a surgeon who learned what she had experienced explained some of the lasting effects of her condition that no one else had prepared her to expect. Those months taught Janine medicine from two perspectives at once. As a patient in intensive care, she found herself unable to reach the call button after the glass doors to her room were closed. She could not call loudly enough for anyone to hear her. The experience stayed with her long after she recovered. Later, while working in long term care, she never left a patient without making certain the call buttons were within reach. She understood the fear created when medical professionals failed to explain what is happening. She understood how vulnerable the It feels to need help and be unable to summon it. Those lessons became as important to her practice as anything she learned from a textbook. When Janine graduated in May of 2007, the nursing director who had once encouraged her to withdraw approached her. I'm so glad you didn't listen to me, she said. You're going to make a great nurse. Janine believed she would and perhaps be a better one because she knew what healthcare felt like from the other side of the bedrail. When I met Janine, her gentle, soft spoken manner made it easy to imagine the comfort she offered at a patient's bedside. The determination that kept her in school lived alongside that tenderness. and she knew how much it mattered to be heard, reassured, and cared for. Janine gravitated toward geriatrics, long-term care, and hospice. Older adults had surrounded her throughout childhood, and caring for them felt natural. Over time, she became a director of nursing, a director of education, and after earning both bachelor's and master's degree, a nursing instructor. Writing followed her into every role. She developed policy and procedure manuals, family care resources, and materials designed. To help children feel less frightened around aging or seriously ill loved ones. Troubled by high employee turnover and long-term care, she created an orientation program focused on preparing and retaining staff. The organization she worked for adopted it throughout its long-term care communities, and Janine was invited to present the program at a nursing conference in Kansas City. So many people registered that the organizers opened a second ballroom. After her presentation, a representative from a healthcare publishing company approached Janine and asked her whether she had considered turning the program into a book. Janine explained that it was not a book, it was simply an orientation program. We can make it a book, the representative replied. Her first book was called Enhancing Staff Retention in Person Centered Care Environments for Older Adults: How to Create and Implement a Comprehensive Orientation Program. And it was published by the Health Professionals Press in 2015. It earned second place in the gerontologic nursing category of the American Journal of Nursing's twenty sixteen Book of the Year Awards and a National Health Information Merit Award. The work was translated into eight languages and used from multiple long-term care organizations. For Janine, it offered proof that nursing and writing did not have to compete for space in her life. one she could give greater purpose than To the other. Even as Janine built her nursing career, cared for aging family members, and managed multiple households, the desire to write fiction remained. she worked full time while caring for her 99 year old father in law, overseeing her mother's home and responsibilities, managing her own household and writing a novel. Eventually she told her husband something had to give. Retirement was still two years away, but Janine had built her life by making deliberate sacrifices for what mattered most. She decided this would be no different. On April 9th, 2026, she retired from nursing and began writing full time. Her father-in-law passed only a few months before his 100th birthday. Her mother, now in her nineties, remained fiercely committed to living independently. with fewer daily responsibilities, Janine finished her novel and found a publisher. The Women of Cypress Lane, her first historical fiction novel was published in May of twenty twenty six. It sold more than eight hundred copies in its first three months. Janine continued writing, still claiming a new identity after decades in healthcare required intention. Janine wrote her name on a piece of paper and placed the word author beside it. She arranged professional photographs and business cards. She understood that if she wanted others to see her differently, she first had to see herself that way. If I can see it, I can be it, she told herself. At sixty-four, Janine entered a networking room and went. And was asked to introduce herself after decades as a mother, caregiver, nurse, and teacher, she said her new title out loud. I'm Janine Lang, I'm an author. The words felt true because she had finally allowed herself to own them. Looking back, she says she stopped comparing herself with others and recognized her determination, perseverance, and talent, and she had earned her seat at the table. If I'm going to talk the talk, I have to walk the walk, she told herself. The photographs and business cards were small, visible steps toward claiming an identity that had been part of her since she was a girl. Janine is one of the women in their sixties who keeps showing me how much can begin after a long career ends. Retirement from nursing gave her room To build something new from abilities she had been developing all her life. Her ingenuity was not a sudden discovery at sixty-four. It was present in the mother who made a celebration with what she had, the nurse who found better ways to care for people, and the writer who finally gave herself permission to be seen. True North Boutique and MedSpa is celebrating its grand opening Saturday, October 24th, in downtown Wood River, Illinois. Founder and owner, Mandy Clark, wanted the day to be about so much more than opening her own doors. True North was built around uplifting women, offering a size-inclusive boutique and med spa services designed to build confidence and help every woman. Feel her best. Mandy is bringing the community together to celebrate and shine a spotlight on other local women known businesses too. The celebration kicks off at 11 a.m. with a ribbon cutting, followed by She Means Business Market, featured women owned businesses, live music, giveaways, food specials, and more. Come celebrate the opening of True North while supporting the incredible women building businesses right here in our community. Janine never stopped thinking about her grandfather's story. While looking through her mother's old albums, the balcony photograph caught her attention again. She had her grandfather's birth certificate and knew it came from Piedimonte de Alfi in the Capania region of southern Italy. In 1970, the town was renamed Pedamonte Matisse. Using online videos, she matched the mountain and the town's bell tower to the background in the photograph. Then she posted the 1957 image in a Facebook group and asked whether anyone recognized the place or the people. Responses began arriving. One person recognized a local grocer. Another identified a family connection. Eventually, Janine received the message that she had hoped for. Yes, that's me. The man in the photograph was her second cousin. His grandfather and Janine's grandfather were brothers. He was eighty seven and still online, and Janine began communicating with him and his daughter, who helped connect her with more relatives. As responses to her Facebook posts arrived and those family connections grew, Janine felt compelled to travel to Pedimante, retrace her grandfather's steps, and see his hometown for herself. She began planning a trip and her relatives began arranging a family reunion for her arrival. Then the coincidences kept coming. The bed and breakfast where Janine planned to stay carried a name that translated to my grandfather's house. The local photographer she found had recently completed an exhibition honoring his own grandfather. Also a photographer who had documented the town. When Janine connected online with an Italian author and teacher whose work explored women's resilience and family history, she learned that the woman taught the daughter of the man she rented the house from. Each connection seemed to lead naturally to another. the photographer will spend a day documenting Janine's visit, the mountain, the bell tower, the relatives and the balcony. Janine and her daughter hope to sit where their family once sat and recreate the photograph that began it all. Janine lit up when she spoke about going to Italy. She wants to see the place her grandfather called home and meet the relatives of her. whose lives continued there after he left. She also looks forward to coming home with stories she can share with her daughters and granddaughters. stories they can tell again keeping their family's history alive and their own voices. Janine does not want this project to become a genealogy lesson built only from names, dates, and records. She is more interested in the meaning underneath them. Why does knowing our history matter? What can the women who came before us teach us about our own capacity? How might a young woman understand herself differently if she knew the resilience already present in her bloodline? Janine sees the question becoming especially important for her granddaughters. One recently began college and places enormous pressure on herself. Janine wants her to understand that she comes from generations of women who endured upheaval and kept moving. Janine's grandmother set alone to the United States at 18 because her parents disapproved of the young man she was seeing. Her mother who left school to care for sick relatives, Janine herself, who entered nursing school at forty five and returned after a brain tumor and pulmonary emboli. And Janine's daughter, who is living with a dehabilitating illness, while building a writing career of her own to help others navigate the healthcare system when no one will listen to them. These are not stories about hardship. They are evidence. They tell the next generation, you come from women who found a way. Janine has adopted a guiding phrase from Lee Ayakoka that reflects the same determination. Lead, follow, or get out of my way. She has stepped fully from her profession into another. She has published a healthcare training book, and her first historical novel continues to build an audience. And is turning a family mystery into a story that may encourage others to pay closer attention to their own histories. Soon she will travel the road her grandfather once traveled in the opposite direction. She will meet the family members whose names were nearly lost, look at the mountain from the photograph, and take her place on the balcony. The new picture will not duplicate the first one. Too many years and lives stand between them for that. Instead it will show what became possible because one granddaughter listened at the kitchen table, remembered the stories, and refused to let them disappear. If she could speak to the younger version of herself, the mother, student, patient, and nurse still finding her way, Janine would tell her to enjoy the process. And trust her own ability without worrying so much about the outcome. Life did not always follow the route she planned. It sometimes led her somewhere better. This is only part one of Janine's story. As this story is published, she will be traveling to Italy with her daughter, follow the threads of her grandfather's life and meet the family connected to that photograph. It is a journey that brings together what matters deeply to her, her family, the stories they share, and her love of writing. Janine's story is something that can belong to all of us for years before we're ready to give it a bigger place in our lives. And there's something exciting about watching a woman say, This is who I am, and seeing what she does next. Her story's still unfolding, and when she returns from Italy, we'll bring you part two. I can't wait to hear what it feels like to step into the place she's known through photographs and family stories and what she'll be bringing home to tell us. And as we celebrate National Women's Small Business Month, follow Glow and Two on Facebook and Instagram for highlights of the women of Glow and Two and the businesses they're building. Visit glowin' two dot com for new features in our Women of Main Street America series and where we meet the women behind the businesses in our communities. Thank you for spending this time with me on the Glow Into podcast. And until next time, keep glowing into who you were always meant to be.