Janice Louise Burns Silonis
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 12:04 PM PDT
Janice Louise
Burns Sillonis
April 14,1946 - Oct. 18, 2009
Nyssa
Janice Louise Burns Sillonis, 63, died Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009, at St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Boise, after a long battle with leukemia. Rosary will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Nyssa. Funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m. Friday at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church. Interment will follow at Hilltop Memorial Cemetery, Nyssa. Services are under the direction of the Lienkaemper-Thomason Chapel. Jan was born April 14, 1946, in Kane, Pa., the third of three children to Rose Esther Smith Burns and Julian Murl Burns. Her family moved several times throughout her life. She attended junior high in Ontario and graduated from Nyssa High in 1964. She married Mateo “Mike” Sillonis in 1965. While raising four children, Jan helped Mike on the farm, was the neighborhood hairdresser, a skilled seamstress, homemaker and self-taught cake decorator. Her cakes were beautiful, but for her, it was most important that they taste good. She made sure each of her children learned to cook and sew, and she made everything from Halloween costumes to prom dresses for them. Jan never knew a stranger, and she continued to explore her creative side, as she learned to oil paint. As her kids grew, she began exploring work outside the home, first as an aide at Adrian High School, reading textbooks to a seeing-impaired student. She was an aide for various classes in the next few years, including a year spent with her granddaughter’s kindergarten class. She then went to work in the school kitchen, where she thrived, and quickly worked her way up to the supervisory role. She enjoyed her co-workers but, more than anything, loved being around “her” kids. She spent countless hours volunteering to help in the kitchen with various fundraising events, always willing to help if it would benefit the kids. She was a founding member of the Adrian Sports Boosters and helped collect newspaper clippings and photos into books chronicling the first 50 years of AHS sports. She spent many years taking tickets at AHS sporting events and was an avid supporter of all the teams. She is survived by her husband, Mike of Adrian; four children and their spouses, Julie and David Nix, of Tigard, Ore., Angie Sillonis and Eric Ellis, of Adrian, Dan and Wendy Sillonis, of Salem, Ore., and Tony Sillonis, of Adrian; three grandchildren, Katareena Sillonis and Brianna and Trevor Nix; a sister and brother-in-law, Patricia and Nels Moller, of Spokane, Wash.; brothers-in-law Pete, and Irma Sillonis,of Adrian and Albert and Jeanette Sillonis, of Weiser; sister-in-law Cecilia, and David Lodzinksi, of Vale; and numerous nieces and nephews. Jan was preceded in death by her parents; son, Timothy; brother, Dick and brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Inaki and Carmen Eiguren. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Sillonis Memorial Scholarship Fund at Adrian High School or the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, in care of Lienkaemper Chapel, P.O. Box 970, Ontario, OR 97914. Condolences to the family may be made at
www.lienkaemper-thomason.com.
