Janette Belue-Wilson

Janette Belue-Wilson, 74 of Pittsboro, IN, passed away January 28, 2026, in Danville, Indiana. 

A celebration of her life will be held at 3pm, Friday, February 6, 2026, at Eric MD Bell Funeral Home, where friends are invited to gather with the family from 1pm until the time of the service. She will be laid to rest at the Lizton K of P Cemetery following the funeral service. Memorial gifts are suggested to the Hendricks County Humane Society.

Below is a tribute provided by Jan's loving husband, Mark. 

Jan was born Janette Elizabeth Belue on March 26, 1951 in Indianapolis, IN. She was born to her parents Jesse Willard Belue and Anna Janette (Drew) Belue. She was born into a family comprised of her Sister, Judith Marie (Belue) Slaughter, Maternal Grandparents, Minnie Marie (Drew) Berry and Clyde T. Berry, Paternal Grandparents, Millage Murnal Belue and Eliza Ann (Burson) Belue, Maternal Uncle James T. Drew and Aunt Rosanne, Paternal Aunt Mary Estell (Darnell) Williams and husband, Joe Emmet Williams, Paternal Aunt Gwen (Gweenlean) (Belue) Hammans and husband, George Elmer Hammans. They have preceded her in death, but she will be reunited with them. She was also preceded in death by her cousin Thomas James Drew. She is also preceded in death by the creatures that gave her such joy in life, her Fur babies, Tapestry, Toby, Lady, Shade, Duke, Brandy, Pima, and Gracie.

Jan is survived by her husband, Mark Owen Belue-Wilson, her daughter, Paula Lynne (Baker) Remala with grandson, Andrew Paul Remala, her son, Jose’ Louise Feliciano, her daughter Michele Lynn Marsh, her son, Joshua Mark Wilson and wife, Claire Elizabeth Sellers with grandson, Stewart Joshua Wilson and granddaughter, Adelaide Claire Wilson. Although some of her children are not biological and she didn’t have the blessing of giving birth to them, she had the blessing of being in their lives for decades and earning the blessing of being called “mom”. She is also survived by Brother-in-Law, Jay Slaughter, her niece, Jennifer Marie Slaughter-Gamble with husband, Louis Gamble, her great-niece Ashleigh Marie Gamble and great-nephew, Jacob Lewis Gamble. She is survived by numerous cousins with their families on both her maternal and paternal sides of the family. She is survived by her last Fur baby, Gus, that she rescued from a kill shelter in California.

Family: She grew up for the first several years of her life in Indianapolis. Jan, her parents, and her sister lived with her Grandma and Grandpa Berry in a two-story home off of Riverside Dr. The grandparents lived upstairs and she and her family lived downstairs. Her Grandma Berry did a lot of caretaking for Jan and her sister in the early years while her grandfather and her parents worked. Jan recounted stories of how hard everyone worked in her family and that is probably how she came by her work ethic naturally which paid off later in life for her.

Around 1960, Jan’s Grandma Berry and Grandpa Berry fondly known as “Pops” moved to Pittsboro, IN. Pops built a house in Pittsboro. Jan and her family moved out to Pittsboro a year or so later. Jan recalls being cared for a lot by her Grandma Berry because her sister was at school and her parents worked. Jan had a lot of alone time because her grandmother had a lot of chores she had to get done before she could watch her “soaps” in the afternoon. Jan then started school in Pittsboro. She was a shy, anxious child when she started school. She also sat in the back of the class and couldn’t see the blackboard for the first couple of years until a teacher realized she needed glasses. Regardless, she was still able to get high marks in school because she learned to compensate until she got glasses. She would have stayed at Pittsboro to finish high school, but her parents divorced and she moved to Lebanon, IN. Although she graduated from Lebanon High School, she still gets invitations to the Pittsboro High School Reunions. Jan made a lot of friends during the time she went to school in Pittsboro and she would have stayed if she didn’t have to move. There was a stressful time for Jan when there was talk of consolidating the school with two other schools. Jan’s family, being from Indianapolis, had an opposing view that was more favorable to the consolidation than the view of many of the Pittsboro residents and this had an impact on some of her friendships with classmates. She recalls favorable memories of the fish fries in the town park, marching in the band for 4th of July parade and almost wanting to faint from heat exhaustion because of the wool uniforms. Other memories are of roller skating in the old high school gym and meeting her first true love, Wayne. She also taught herself to play the Bassoon because the Lebanon HS band already had too many clarinet players.

Jan grew up with some strong values that shaped her view of the world. Values such as family, doing what is right, hard work, education and taking care of those who are defenseless, i.e. elderly, children, animals. There was a value that her family tried to instill in her but, she must have obtained this value on her own because they swore she didn’t get it from them, SHE’S A DEMOCRAT, and they are die-hard republicans (but this is a story for another day).

After Grandma Berry and Pops moved to Pittsboro, then her family moved to Pittsboro, and then her Uncle Jim brought his family to Pittsboro, and Jim eventually built a home next to Grandma Berry and Pops. This allowed there to be family Sunday dinners with exciting games of Euchre after dinner, playing with her cousins, Tom, Cathy, Karen and Mike, and having summer cookouts. She and her family took trips and they often went to Alabama to visit her father’s family. She enjoyed growing up as a child visiting her paternal grandparents who were caretakers at Wollen Gardens in Indianapolis. There were Saturday shopping trips for groceries and going into the city to buy clothes. These activities dwindled as time went on with everyone getting older, starting their own families, and some moving away. An additional cousin, Uncle Jim’s and Aunt Roseanne’s daughter Amy, was born later in their lives. Jan spent a lot of hours watching her grow from childhood to adulthood.

Jan started her own family and married the hometown hero, the boy next door, and followed him to Illinois where he started his career. Fortunately for her current husband, Mark, that first marriage didn’t succeed, so, Mark and Jan married and shared 45 years of marriage as of 12/12/2025.

In Illinois, Jan started her second family with her first daughter, Paula, who Jan met at the age of 11. Paula was matched with Jan through the Big Sister Little Sister program. Paula and Jan have maintained a relationship for 50 years. Jan assisted her through becoming a young woman, finishing high school, getting married, being available during her pregnancy, being grandmother to her son, being a support during her divorce, and being a phone call away during all the other ups and downs life threw at her. Paula saw Jan as her mom. Jan also met her first son, Jose’ Louise Feliciano (fondly known as Louie), in Elgin, IL when she was running an after-school social service program at a local YMCA. Louie was not an easy child but he liked Jan and she was enamored with him though upset about his living situation. She would drive him home late at night but, made sure he had a meal before she dropped him off. Louie had many ups and downs through life, more downs than ups that any one child or man should have. Jan became his foster parent for a while until he returned to his biological family. Jan maintained a distant relationship with Louie with an occasional phone call or a drop in visit. He could trust her and knew she would be honest with him so, she was mom to him also. Her second son, Joshua Mark Wilson was born on 4/19/1982 in Dekalb, IL. He was her everything. The number of books and the hours she spent reading about caring for a child and a child’s development before he was born were insurmountable. She put him before everything else. She would say if you have to save one person out of the 3 of us it’s to be Josh first. She made decisions for her family based on what was right for him. Jan was concerned about her grandparents getting elderly and no one to help care for them. She also wanted Joshua to grow up with the same sense of family. She and Mark relocated to Pittsboro in October 1984. Pops passed in 1985 which was difficult for her. During the next 20 years, Joshua was exposed to small town living that was safer than living in the big city. She introduced him to fish fries, parades, local sports and to Sunday night dinners at Great-Grandma Berry’s where he became the youngest to ever sit at the Euchre table after dinner. In years gone by, you had to reach adulthood before you could sit at the table. Jan’s family was competitive in all things. Jan raised Josh to be a formidable opponent against his grandma, his uncle and he learned to give Jan a run for her money at the table.

Also during this time frame she introduced to our family a young lady, Michele L. Marsh, who she met while teaching the high school Sunday school class. She became a permanent part of our family on 6/5/92 and has been part of our family for 34 years. Jan has thought of her as a daughter. There were other children along the way that thought of Jan as loving parent but the relationship never developed into anything long term.

Jan helped care for her grandmother until she passed at 99 years of age and her mother at 80 years of age. As soon as her mother died, she got a call from people in Alabama that her father needed help. Ultimately, she moved her father up from Alabama and cared for him until he passed.

Hard Work: Jan has always worked hard and her belief has been to do it right the first time. Jan was in 4-H and won ribbons for her sewing. Jan had her first job working in retail at J.C. Penney’s at Lafayette Square. Next she worked at Ryan’s Popcorn at G.C. Murphy’s in Indianapolis where the owner found her responsible enough to let her manage, order stock, and sell at the concession stand. Jan later went to work for L. Strauss in downtown Indianapolis where she advanced to Assistant Controller in a male dominated environment. She also found it unfair that the men could smoke at their desks and the female employees couldn’t. Jan got that policy changed quickly. They wanted her for an administrative position but she was getting ready to move to Illinois. She started working in human services in Genoa, IL with a Spanish speaking population and what she knew of Spanish is what she could remember from high school. With success in that job, she went to a Local YMCA in Elgin, IL where she became a Supervisor of a Big Brother’s program and eventually Outreach Director at the YMCA. This gave her two additional programs to supervise with one of them being an after-school program for neighborhood at-risk children. After leaving Elgin, IL she moved to Dekalb, IL where she worked for the State of Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and helped to make statewide policy changes regarding foster families and adoptive families. When she relocated to Indiana, she worked in social services for Hendricks County. The consensus of her supervisors up to this point was that she was industrious, organized, responsible, excellent performance, outstanding, an asset, and has high expectations of herself. The only negative comment was from her YMCA Director who stated she didn’t get enough sleep because she worked too hard putting in too many hours at work. After the completion of her job for Hendricks County, she then went back to school to obtain her Masters in Social Work which helped her reach her ultimate goal of opening up her own practice, Family Counseling Center. She tried working for a state mental health agency immediately after her graduation, but Jan stated she just didn’t fit well with systems. She felt she could do it better, which she did by having her own business. Her illness got in the way of her dream of continuing her own practice and she had to leave her practice in 2007.

Education: Jan always believed in education and never saw anything different for her than going to college. After high school, Jan went to IU Bloomington. Her college career was cut short because of a knee surgery that went bad. She was eventually able to complete her undergraduate degree at Northern Illinois University after getting married to her first husband and settling in Dekalb, IL. Once she returned to Pittsboro, her plan was to get to the point of returning to school and obtaining her Master of Social Work Degree which she did in 1990. Jan was supportive of Michele when she went to IUPUI to obtain a BSW in Social Work and then immediately upon completion of that degree going into the Master of Social Work program at IUPUI. Jan was always supportive of Joshua and his school career and attempting to lend a hand whether it was making mini pizzas for a class project or volunteering to be a parent instructor for the “Just Say No” program for his 5th grade class. She not only thought formal education was important, but also education through sports, such as learning sportsmanship and social skills. She supported him in Little League Baseball and helped to financially support his AAU basketball team. During high school, she helped guide him through events that would prepare him for college and once in college he was off and running. He took the reins and successfully completed a PhD program at Duke University in Medical Physics and now has started his own family.

Jan continued her own education on aspects of her illness. Jan suffered with an illness, labeled--mixed connective tissue disorder, and there wasn’t a lot known about it so, she researched it over many years. What she did learn was that it would have a negative impact on every organ of her body at some point. The disorder started in 1998 and progressively got worse over time. Jan also had extreme iron deficient anemia. In 2025, she was getting a unit or two of blood transfused about every 6 weeks because of blood loss. She was bleeding from her stomach which was addressed but, it was a short-term fix. At the end of 2025, her hematologist wanted her to get weekly iron infusions. She had to have a port placed for vein access to accomplish the infusions. The port became infected and the infection spread throughout her body which caused her to lose her life to sepsis.

Doing what’s right: Jan has advocated against social injustice during her life. She knew something was wrong at a young age when her parents wouldn’t answer some of her questions about some of the African American children in the neighborhood. She was inquisitive at five about social injustice. She was a feminist and stood up for women’s rights. She believed in women having control of their own lives and keeping their identity. Jan didn’t change her maiden name in her first marriage because she felt it was giving up who she was. When she married Mark, she was willing to hyphenate the last name to Belue-Wilson (later Mark went to court to have his name legally changed to Belue-Wilson). Jan has been worried about what kind of world would be left behind for her children and now her grandchildren. She advocated against Qualitech Steel because of damage to the environment and air quality. She was worried about what things got thrown away and would wind up in landfills so, she modified how she disposed of certain medications, batteries, some plastics, certain foods like sugar free chocolate, and she also kept this same concept regarding her burial. Jan chose a Green Burial (it is not totally Green because of certain limitations in Indiana but enough Green to meet her wishes and not send her out of state).

Taking Care of the Defenseless: This relates to caring for people, animals, or creatures (other than spiders or bees). Jan worried about the elderly and would reach out when she could. She worked in mental health because the mentally ill are shunned. She worked in social services usually when children were involved because there was no one to advocate for the child or to help the parents to be understood. She had fur babies that were all rescues but one. At one point she had 5 canine fur babies sharing her bed plus her husband. They loved her and she adored them. She would of had more if she could. She had keep quiet in voicing how many she had at once because in Hendricks County any more than 3 or 4 you have to be licensed as a Kennel. She would try to rehab baby birds that fell out of their nest or once she had to get an owl to a facility to be rehabbed. She even tried to help a turtle cross I-74 while fending off oncoming semi-trucks. Her dream was to have some land out in the country where she could raise, foster, and rehab a bunch of animals (furry or feathered). She even wanted mice, squirrels, and raccoons that invaded our living structure to be trapped and released back into the wild.

Demeanor and Impact: Jan wasn’t always serious. She had a fun and carefree side. She loved a good joke. She loved mystery books. She loved music, any type. She was raised on classical and big band. During her middle school years, she had to get the newest released 45, and in high school, it was musicals. She loved to play the piano and she loved band. Jan loved to sew, crochet and work on arts and crafts. Her sewing was top notch. She made herself dresses, made Halloween outfits for her son, she designed costumes for the Tri-West Mascot when Joshua performed as the mascot at football games, and she made things for the house and presents for others whether sewn or crocheted. She created decorations at Halloween, decorations for Joshua’s high school post prom and special wrapped Christmas presents for her grandmother.

Her family members said these things about her on her 41st birthday.

Grandma Berry: “I have enjoyed watching your interest develop in gardening along with you appreciation of our feathered friends, the birds. It appears that we have several tastes that are similar i.e. working outside rather than inside, sewing, crafts and a passion for reading.”

Her Mother, Anna: “…it became very evident that you were born with an attitude. Translated-determination that was sometimes difficult to side track. At very early age you insisted on feeding yourself and did a great job of redecorating the wall, the floor, the high chair you were occupying. But you got the job done and this spirit manifested itself in many ways.”

Her Bro-in-law, Jay: “Your care and compassion for others has always impressed me. The concern and hard work that you have invested in the lives of people in crisis have made a significant difference in so many ways”.

Her Sister, Judy: “remember as children “…your skill as a guerrilla member of my militia—back yard…, …Edward had me on the ground attempting to feed me some grass and worm do-do when out of nowhere you came flying through the air and fastened your teeth right in his leg.”

Her Uncle, Jim: “…I used to be the designated baby sitter, when Mom, Anne and Rosanne would be grocery shopping. There were times when this was very trying on my nerves. Jan was always ready to register a protest when Mike (Jim’s youngest) would tell me what everybody was doing.”

Jan was a good friend to people she worked with, a dutiful daughter and granddaughter, a supportive extended relative, a woman with an endless amount of love to give to her family, her children.

The greatest thing she had was to share love with her husband. They met in Elgin, IL while she was working as the supervisor for the Big Brother program at the YMCA. They were best friends and help mates. They laughed together and they enjoyed playing games together. They raised children and animals together and they cried together. They enjoyed doing projects together. She encouraged to go back to school for his Masters in Social Work. She loved and supported him through that endeavor.

She couldn’t have been more adored or loved by anyone more than me, her husband, for the 45 years we were married. I promised her at the end it was okay to leave her broken, painful body that her soul had endured for over 20 years. I gave up kissing her on the lips when she got sick so, I wouldn’t spread any type of bacteria or virus but, I gave her the first one in 20 years that day before I promised her that the things she was worried about, if she left us behind, would be taken care of and handled. She was chemically sedated and off the vent and I believe she heard me because with that, her soul, her light, her life energy left on Wednesday, January 28, 2026. It was all recorded that her departure was at 3:16. My pointing out the significance of the time of her life’s spirit departing was God telling me she would be taken care of until I see her again.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” KJV