By Linda Oestreich | Fellow
My Memories of Janis
Janis Raymond Hocker
Former STC President
10 June 1948–14 January 2012
I don’t remember the exact time or place that I met Janis Raymond Hocker—she just appeared and stuck. She was president of STC from 1987–1988, and I moved to Texas in 1990. Soon thereafter, I realized that Janis was a hometown hero for Houston STC folks.
Janis, unlike many of us women who balanced careers and family, met her husband, Joe, and got married a little later in life—after she rose through the STC ranks. When she and Joe had children, Janis became a stay-at-home mom and focused most of her attention on her two children, Harrison and Haley. As the kids grew, Janis slowly began working again, but usually on small contract jobs that let her be home when the kids got home from school. The one exception was when she would travel to teach writing workshops for Texaco. During those times, Janis’s mom would stay with the kids—with help from Joe if he wasn’t also on the road!
Janis developed a two-day writing workshop for Texaco and they sent her all over to teach it. In most cases, she wasn’t teaching engineers, she was teaching the folks who ran their 24-hour shops and the folks who drove their trucks, anyone in the company who needed to learn how to write an occasional memo and a monthly report. Once, when Janis had a conflict, I filled in for her and flew to Orlando to do the workshop—I couldn’t compete with the reputation she had. I think the class was a little disappointed they had to settle for someone other than the famous Janis!
Our collaborations didn’t stop there. For a few years, I was vice president of documentation at Kitba Consulting Services, a technical documentation consulting firm. We often had short-term editing contracts, and I learned that Janis was a perfect fit for many of them. She developed a rapport with our clients and many of them requested her on a regular basis! She knew her stuff. She edited with excellence and could work with our toughest clients. Janis could counsel the writers in a way that made them think the changes she had to make were all their own ideas. No matter what she was doing, she’d find the good and the humor in it. Jobs no one else would touch because the client was difficult were her bread and butter. She and I would laugh about so many things—language, words, personalities—and all the time, our friendship grew.
Janis meant so much to me; writing this little memoriam seems pathetic in the grand scheme of things. I’ve spent hours searching through old letters and emails looking for gems that she sent out, but I’ve found precious few. A few years ago, Janis began writing a technical editing text, and I know she sent me a few chapters to review, but I can’t find it anywhere. I don’t even remember if it was a hard or soft copy! How easily we put things aside thinking that there will be time, that the person will always be there. And then they aren’t.
I left Houston in 2004 to return to my home here in San Diego. Janis and I kept in touch and I visited her when I could. Over the years, she completed the biggest and most successful job she ever had: she raised two delightfully wonderful children who have become more than she ever dreamed. Haley recently graduated from University of Texas as a chemical engineer, and Harrison, who got married on 30 December (Janis made it to the wedding and danced with her son!), is working on his PhD. Both children and her husband, Joe, have been strong and wonderful cheerleaders for Janis, just as she was for them. There’s so much more to tell: Janis’s life at Joe’s side while he worked in Indonesia, Janis’s hilarious trip to the main drag in Amsterdam with her kids, the great rooster collection she had in her kitchen, the racy jokes she’d tell, and the secrets she shared about STC conferences gone by that I will take to my own grave.
I was lucky enough to talk to her a couple of weeks before she died. We had a lovely chat and we laughed—a touch of the wonderful laughter that carried her through it all. I want to share with you a few lines from an email she sent to me last January: “Actually my nausea saves a lot of money…. For some reason, the nausea makes me want to eat fruit when I am hungry. I guess that’s good. However, if I suddenly develop a craving for brussel sprouts, I’m demanding a new medication.”
Janis Raymond Hocker was a force of nature beyond imagining. I’m honored and grateful that I had the chance to be in her life.
