Janet Holling Flodin

1927 - 2022

Janet Holling Flodin, 95, passed away on Oct. 18, 2022. Jan was a resident of Fairbanks, Alaska, for 63 years, and moved to the Pioneer Home in Anchorage for the last eight months of her life.

Jan was born in Currie, Minnesota, on Jan. 2, 1927, to Martin Marth and Cora Wilma Warne.

She was raised on a farm in Pipestone by Cora and her second husband, John Holling, a semi-pro baseball player. John taught Jan the love of sports which she excelled at, and later in the 1970s she led the Fairbanks Lutheran Church bowling team and softball team to many a victory.

In her teenage years, the family moved from rural Minnesota to the Bay Area of California where Jan graduated from high school. She was always a talented student and was the first one in her family to attend university - a rarity for women in the '40s when she went to the University of California Berkeley and earned a B.A. in math, graduating in 1948. In 1952 she finished her M.A. in counseling, also at UC Berkeley, and then spent a year in Austria, helping to rebuild houses and engaging in other relief work with the Lutheran Church after WWII. After returning to the U.S., she took a job as a counselor at the University of Montana where she later met her future husband, Jerry Eric Flodin. They were married June 11, 1959, and left for Alaska the following week. The honeymooners stayed in Alaska. They both got jobs with NADCO, Jan managing the Little Nanook Motel while Jerry worked with mobile home sales.

By 1968 Jan and Jerry had five children. While running the household and chasing after the kids and pets, Jan also worked for the next 25 years as a bookkeeper and sawyer at Northland Wood Products, the successful family business that was started in 1965.

Jan and Jerry loved to travel, whether a boat trip up the Salcha River or a journey around the world. In 1965 they loaded four kids under the age of 5 into their Chevy Van and made a family road trip from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Mexico City and back. Over the years they visited Japan, SE Asia, Australia, Africa and many other destinations.

From 1980-1981 Jan and Jerry moved the whole family to Jakarta, Indonesia, for a year and half. Jan felt we had much to learn from seeing and understanding how the rest of the world did not necessarily do everything the same way we did at home.

In the early '80s, Jan bought her first computer in Singapore and discovered a love of the machine that became a large part of her life. As Jerry said, "She and the computer fit together like a hand and glove." She taught computer classes at Tanana Valley Community College for 17 years, and generously ensured that her children and grandchildren always stayed up to date with the current technology.

Jan was very involved in the church throughout her life and was a member of Fairbanks Lutheran Church for 59 years. She was a pioneer - the first woman on the church council and the first woman to be elected president of the congregation.

Jan was a beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother who loved spending time with her family (which always included at least one cat and one dog if not more). Her sense of adventure - building a cabin up the Salcha River, river boating and canoing in Alaska, a month-long motorcycle trip to the states for their 25th anniversary - is a trait we will always cherish.

Jan is survived by four children, Mike Flodin (and Anne Hafer), Sandra (and Steve) Lambert, Tracy (and Mirko) Flodin, Roger Flodin; and grandchildren, Larkin and Abby Flodin, Paul and Philip Lambert, Corinna, Melissa and Jannis Flodin, Nicholas (and Heather) Flodin; great-grandchildren Camden and Rory Flodin and by schnauzer Pepper-Pot and orange tabby Tigger-Tot.

She was preceded in death by her son, Andrew Flodin (2009), and her husband, Jerry Flodin, (August 2021).

A service will be held on Saturday, Nov. 12 at Fairbanks Lutheran Church at 11 a.m.

In lieu of flowers, those wishing to make an expression of sympathy can consider a donation in Jan's name to Lutheran World Relief at lwr.org/ (LWR was Jan's employer 70 years ago in Europe!)