Janet Marie Vogel Gregory

Janet Marie Vogel Gregory was born October 30, 1942, in Chicago to William and Gertrude Gregory and was the youngest of five children: Thomas, William, Marilyn (McLaughlin), and Robert. She died in Kenwood, California, on September 24, 2025. Janet graduated from Chicago's Little Flowers Elementary School and St. Mary's High School in 1959.
Raised on West 57th Street, Janet came of age in the 1950s, enjoying Chicago's culture and a love of jazz standards. A lifelong patron of the arts, she was a member of many clubs including The Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony, and the Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts Pageant of the Master to name a few. Janet was a talented artist herself, naturally gifted at drawing proficiently, yet she chose an education and career in health care. She graduated from St. Bernard's Hospital School of Nursing in 1962, and worked as a registered nurse until she left to raise her two daughters, Jennifer and Amy.
Janet later switched to a career in psychology, graduating from George Williams College with a Bachelor of Applied Behavioral Science (cum laude) in 1978, a Master of Psychiatric Social Work in 1980, and then 1996, she graduated from the Pacifica Graduate Institute with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Her experience included positions in mental health agencies and hospitals throughout Chicago and Orange County, California, where she lived from 1986-1998. Janet was an altruistic and spiritual person who provided extensive consultation and educational services to community schools and businesses, all while managing a successful psychotherapy practice.
Throughout her life, her love of flora and fauna was ever present. When raising her girls at the family home in Hinsdale, Illinois, Janet designed a glass-walled room she named "the solarium" and filled it with large tropical plants that she fed with rainwater collected from the downspouts. She was a member of the Hinsdale Gardening Club and spent her weekends pruning and plucking in the family's gardens.
A nutritionist, and ahead of her time for the 1970s, she was weary of the industrial processed food trends of the time and grew her own organic vegetables. Janet's beloved nephew Gregory McLaughlin famously says that she "put wheat germ into his SpaghettiOs."
Janet was an introspective and intellectual observer, and could often be found walking in the Chicago Morton Arboretum, running barefoot on the sands of Laguna Beach, or in later years, reading and writing about the peace that nature consistently brought her. In Chicago, Janet enjoyed sailing on Lake Michigan, and later in California, on the Pacific Ocean.
Her lifelong appreciation of nature culminated in her book "The Wave Watcher" in 1992, a compilation of essays and poetry about the ocean. She wrote: "Listen to what the earth, sea, stars, and sun have to say to you. You need no special equipment, just an open receptive attitude. Nature will do the rest. You will never regret it."
Janet, who was an adoring and devoted grandmother, is survived by her daughters, Jennifer Marie Adamson Withington and Amy Celeste Adamson; son-in-law Douglas John Withington; grandsons Christopher Thomas Withington, Dr. Charles Gregory Withington, and Jack Alexander Cunningham; and her many nieces, nephews and their children.
In lieu of flowers, donations in her name may be made to: Hospice By the Bay
bythebay.health.org

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