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Janet Louise Knight Lemmen
Janet Louise Knight Lemmen died peacefully and comfortably in her sleep on June 3 at home in Hampstead, North Carolina. She was 89.
She was born in Sharon, Connecticut, on March 27, 1935, and moved with her father, Robert Edmund Newell Hines Knight, and mother, Caroline Kane Knight, to East Moriches in the 1940s. She graduated from Eastport High School, where she admired her English teacher, Julia Tunell.
After spending a year enrolled as an English major at Albany State Teachers College, she worked at the advertising agency BBD&O in New York City until her marriage in 1954 to Josef Lemmen, a farmer, nurseryman and singer from East Moriches.
Shortly after, the U.S. Army sent her husband to Alaska, where she and their 1 year old son joined him for a year at Fort Greely. They returned to East Moriches, where the couple raised their family of four children — Greg, Jane, Greta and Robert.
Her family said they would cherish the many thoughts of her for her selfless love of family, her service to others, her service within the Methodist Church leading the United Methodist Women of East Moriches and of Long Island, her involvement with several charitable organizations and for her bright spirit and wit as she and her husband cultivated a circle of friends stretching from coast to coast and even to other continents.
She traveled with her husband to many world-wide locations, including England, Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Finland, Israel, Egypt, China and Hawaii.
The couple also enjoyed vacationing during the winter at their Florida Keys vacation home. They moved for a time to Fort Myers from the Keys, and in 2020 moved to North Carolina to be closer to family.
She is survived by her husband of 70 years; her four children; eight grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at the East Moriches United Methodist Church at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, June 26.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent to the East Moriches Methodist Church Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 546, East Moriches, New York 11940, the Alzheimer’s Association (alz.org) or a local hospice organization.
Staff Writer on Jun 17, 2024