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Janet Marie Elmore Cullen Tanaka (January 7, 1936-November 30, 2021  )

Born January 7, 1936 at home in Malin, Oregon to Jesse Fred Elmore (Fred) and Mary Rosetta Capps Elmore (Rose). Fred and Rose were in their 40's when Janet was born and her 2 older sisters Dorothea (Dot) and Essie were in their 20s. Her father was a carpenter and her mother was a hotel chambermaid. They were born and raised in Missouri but came to Oregon after the great Depression.

Janet was an honor student through high school and graduated salutorian in 1954. She was active in Girl Scouts, Order of the Rainbow Girls, and, along with her sister and Mother, was active in the Community Presbyterian Church where Janet sang in the choir. She went on to attend Lewis & Clark College in Portland and graduated in 1958 Magnum cum laude with a major in Social Psychology and minored in voice. Janet sang in the college choir and was a member of Mu Phi Epsilon music sorority.

After college, Janet worked as a state welfare caseworker in Yakima where she met her future husband William Cullen (Bill). In 1959, they were married in St Joseph's Catholic Church in Yakima. Eventually moving to the Seattle area and then to Olympia in 1966 where Janet was a stay at home mom to their 7 children and Bill was an accountant for government agencies. Janet was active in the Catholic Church as a choir soloist and in Catholic Daughters of America. During this time she advised a teen-age folk mass group and composed a folk mass on science and religion called “Creation Alleluia”. She also wrote several Sunday school songs and was often singing and playing her autoharp.

In the early-70's both Janet and Bill had considerable personality changes that led to the dissolution of their marriage in 1974. Janet entered the Masters Program in urban planning at the University of Washington while Bill took over custody of the children in their Olympia home.

Janet graduated in 1978 with a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning. Her thesis on Mt Rainier hazards in the Puyallup Valley was one of it's kind in the US. She worked as a consultant to several government agencies at all levels and became involved in politics lobbying for hazards planning for the potential volcanic eruptions in Washington state. Her love of volcanoes led her to write “Fire Mountain”, a disaster novel, using material from her thesis. When Mt St Helens erupted in 1980 her predictions in her novel were so accurate she was invited to speak on TV. She also wrote articles for magazines and newspapers on topics of religion, geology, and social psychology. She began her own newletter magazine featuring the lighter side of volcanology called “Volcano Quarterly.” Janet was active in the Association for Women Geologists where a scholorship was created in her name and the International Association for Volcanology And Chemistry of the Earths Interior (IAVCEI).

Near the end of grad school she met Shigeichi (Mike) Tanaka, a Boeing engineer, and they were married in 1980. She converted to the Bahai faith and with the four youngest children moved to Issaquah. Janet was spiritually happy and fulfilled in the Baha'i faith and involved in interfaith activities. Mike and Janet were true Trekkies and attended Sci-Fi cons as speakers on panels regarding Faith and Science. They also enjoyed travelling to New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, and along the west coast of the US.

Mike and Janet retired in 1998 moving to the Olympia area to be near their grandchildren. Regretfully, Janet was unable to complete her latest writing project, a biography of Dwight Crandell, a premier geologist on the Cascade volcanoes and her mentor. Currently her colleagues have the manuscript and hope to complete it for her from her notes.

Janet was preceded in death by her parents and sisters, and her daughter, Jennifer. She leaves six children Kitty Hjelm (husband, Eric), Kim Lougheed (husband, Mark), Brian Cullen (wife, Noriko), Janelle Tyler (husband, Jeremy), Christopher Cullen (wife, Karen), Kerry Sousa (husband, Peter), 9 grandchildren, 8 great-grandchildren, and many “adopted” children and grandchildren.