Janet Wofford Ingram

Janet Wofford Ingram, a descendant of early Texas cattleman and Indian fighter Ross Kennedy, was born to William Mitchell and Margery Peters Wofford November 30, 1914, in the small southwest Texas town of Sabinal in Uvalde County. She died in Austin, Texas, March 29, 2016. She was 101 years old.

Janet and her sister, Isabel, started school in Sabinal but moved to Austin with their widowed mother when she took a teaching job there. In 1931 Janet graduated from Austin High School, where she was a Red Jacket and editor of the Comet. She worked her way through the University of Texas, variously employed by the Engrossing Department of the Texas Legislature, the National Youth Administration, the Texas Employment Service, the Office of the President of the University of Texas, and an accounting firm. She graduated from UT in 1937 with a B.Sc. in chemistry and a minor in zoology.

After several post-graduation months skylarking with a friend in Boulder, Colorado, Janet was summoned home. Her mother and sister, concerned that she had no job, had hired her out to teach English to preschool children in Eagle Pass. There she met her future husband, Temple Byrn Ingram of Terrell, Texas, a civil engineer working on the Ditch. They spent many an evening dining and dancing at the Cafe Moderno across the river in Piedras Negras, Along the way, Janet said (but Temple denied) that Temple picked up the nickname the "Champagne Playboy of the Rio Grande." They did not immediately marry, and Janet left to work and study for a year as a laboratory technician at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California while Temple waited for her in Austin On her return, Janet worked at Brooks General Hospital in San Antonio until she and Temple married in 1941 and she joined him in Austin, where he worked for the Texas Highway Department.

After the U.S. entered WWII, Temple built and maintained airstrips in Britain while Janet and their firstborn child shared a home in San Antonio with her sister, Isabel, and brother-in-law, Sam Weller. She volunteered as a Gray Lady with the Red Cross and worked in other war efforts until Temple's return in 1946. When he took a job as resident engineer with the highway department, they moved with their three-year-old daughter to Gilmer, in the piney woods of northeast Texas.

Besides raising four children, Janet actively participated in community affairs in Gilmer. A member of the First Methodist Church, she was involved in Methodist Women and served on the church board. She worked tirelessly for the PTA, the Camp Fire Girls, the Boy Scouts, and United Way. She was a member and officer of the Bluebonnet Club. A longtime and eventually permanent board member of the East Texas Yamboree Association, she was also a charter member and early chairman of the Yamboree Group at the Texas Folklife Festival. She worked on many Chamber of Commerce projects and as a board member. She was a charter member of the Gilmer Great Books Club and the Texas Art Alliance and a longtime member of the Friends of the Library. Once the children were grown and Temple retired, Janet learned bookbinding, they both took up weaving, and they traveled over the world.

After almost forty years in Gilmer, Janet and Temple moved back to the Hill Country she so loved. While living near Johnson City and in Austin, Janet taught adult literacy and actively supported the Friends of the LBJ Library and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. She enjoyed the Austin Symphony, the Austin Lyric Opera, picnic lunches on the banks of Town Lake and among the peacocks at Mayfield Park, and time with family and friends at the house on the Pedernales.

Janet was a lifelong Democrat, with an abiding interest in politics. She counted ballots in Upshur County elections back when election results appeared on a big blackboard on the courthouse square. Into the last weeks of her life, she was discussing the 2016 presidential campaigns with her children and looking forward to voting for Hillary Clinton in November.

All her life Janet loved learning new things. She loved books, baseball, bridge, Scrabble, crosswords, travel, her family, and her friends, renewing old friendships and beginning new ones wherever she went. She had a great laugh and a beautiful smile. Janet was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, Temple, and her beloved sister, Isabel Wofford Weller. She is survived by her children, Margaret Ingram, Patricia Ingram and husband, Steve Edwards, and Temple Ingram, Jr., and wife, Janet, all of Austin, and Jim Ingram and wife, Charli, of Driftwood, eight grandchildren, fifteen great-grandchildren, and a host of nieces, nephews, and friends.

A memorial service will be held in the Murchison Chapel, First United Methodist Church, 1201 Lavaca, Austin, on Saturday, April 16, at 3 p.m., followed by a reception for friends and family at Janet's townhouse at 1 Woodstone Square, Austin. Valet parking will be provided at Woodstone. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center or a charity of your choice.