Louisa Jane was the pet name Janet’s dad had for her. “Louise” is Janet’s middle name, her maternal grandmother’s first name. “Jane” is her dad’s little sister, who Janet resembles both in looks and talents. Janet’s dad went to his Heavenly home in the year 2000.
If he was here from the start of Louisa Jane, he would have been the first to help with all the woodwork as he was the one who taught Janet and Brenda the love of all things wood. He would be smiling his quiet grin and be so pleased with his curly haired, blue eyed “Louisa Jane”.
HOW IT ALL STARTED.
Janet grew up in Tremont, Illinois, in a home of “DIY-ers” – that is, they did everything themselves and weren’t afraid to tackle anything….well, most things! She spent hours in the wood shop working alongside her dad and brothers, fiddling with this and that. Or at the old sewing machine handed down from Grandma Rocke, making clothes, pillows and anything else that sounded fun. “Old sewing machine” being a very literal term as it was a relic, and one repairman wondered why it wasn’t under glass in a museum….so goes the back story of the “Rocke Syndrome” of “That’s not junk! I think we can fix it….” and never throwing anything away until it’s beyond all hope twice over, and then it could probably be made into something else even better, so why not give that a try?!
Janet remembers going to junk stores with her mom – literally. “Mom was a thrift shopping, garage sale loving resourceful lady (still is) and I loved shopping with her! All of us kids did. Never a dull moment, that’s for sure. One day we were out hunting and wound up driving through the picket line of Caterpillar workers on strike as Mom was convinced that road was a shortcut to somewhere. Not so much, but we eventually got to where we were going and came home with the goods! Mission accomplished.”
When you love old things, tools are so necessary! It’s crippling and seriously frustrating to NOT have that one tool when you need it. Drills, screwdrivers, needle nose plyers, hammers, you name it. To this day, Janet has two or three in her purse at any given time – cause that’s just how it rolls.
Janet’s dream, from as early as she can remember, was to be a designer in some sense of the word. She started as a co-op student at Caterpillar in high school and worked there through college, which evolved into encouragement toward a career in Mechanical Engineering as that was wise plan “a more practical and safer route to go, a dependable career, you already have a foot in the door….” rather than follow her dream into Interior Design. That’s where she was headed for several years, but the love of all things creative and beautiful won out. “So sorry to all you fabulous engineers, but gears and parts and valves and tensile strength and heat treat ….blah blah blah.. is so NOT that much fun.”
She gave it all up to buy into a flower shop. What a moment! A few months later, her father passed away quite suddenly and then things really really changed. “Those months were tough. Seriously tough. So many life changes happened at the same time, and I was reeling from it all. I look back from where I am now, and I can hardly believe it’s been 18 years since Dad’s been gone. I like to think that he’d be giving me his crooked smile right about now and have some really good words of wisdom. But God has been good – so very good – and He’s in charge of all things.”
Over those 18 years, Janet worked in the flower shop, eventually sold it and moved onto designing home interiors. Anything from furniture to custom window treatments to general decor. A few years later, she expanded into full home design with kitchens, bathrooms and everything else that makes a home. But in her spare time (for those of you who know her, spare time is a relative term, haha), she kept up the thrift shopping and honed her furniture-makeover habit until friends and family kept asking, “Why don’t you do this for real?”
So….. hello Louisa Jane.
After some serious prayer, a lot of encouragement, some kicking and screaming, many self-doubt moments, then much needed faith, she quit her job and started stock-piling furniture. Along with her cousin Dawn, she found a work shop, put some serious sweat equity into the term “girls with power tools”, painted like mad, rented a tent, set the date and prayed big. Really BIG. And God delivered big. Really BIG. The tent was emptied in an overwhelming hurry and with amazing support from the community, friends and family, Louisa Jane got real. So real.
So here we are, just a few years later, with much water under the bridge and more life changes, we are growing every moment and loving every minute. The team at Louisa Jane is forever grateful to our wonderful community, families and friends as we wouldn’t be anywhere without you. But most of all, we are thankful. For God, He is GOOD. All the time.