Norwich
“He hung in the back very quietly, but he was always there,” recalled Heinz Trebitz, a friend and fellow hiker who spoke at a recent memorial service for Janeway at Norwich Congregational Church.
The Rev. Mary Brownlow, who presided over the service, said that she enjoyed chatting with Janeway during benefit walks for the Upper Valley Haven, the homeless shelter in White River Junction. He was a “man who put one foot in front of the other until he was done,” Brownlow said.
Janeway, who had an absent-minded professor quality to him, wasn’t one to seek attention. He preferred to remain in the background, pitching in where needed. “His ego never came first,” said Steve Swett, a longtime friend. “He did the little things that make a community work.”
In the weeks leading up to the annual Norwich Fair, Janeway could be found selling tickets for the Norwich Lions Club outside Dan & Whit’s General Store or at the town dump on Saturdays. He collected used eye glasses for the Lions Recycle for Sight Program.
Janeway cut brush and cleared hiking trails with the Green Mountain Club, which has maintained Vermont’s Long Trail for more than a century. For years, he played an integral role in keeping up the club’s Ottauquechee section, which is also responsible for 46 miles of the Appalachian Trail.
“Ed was the silent type, but you could see in his eyes that he was taking everything in,” said Inge Brown, another friend who spoke at the memorial service.
Janeway died on March 10, a few days after suffering a fall. He was 84.
“Ed will be remembered for his spirit, kindness, charm, easy-going personality, civic involvement, and love of Vermont life,” stated his obituary.
He also played a mean game of Trivial Pursuit. During the course of a lengthy game, Annie Janeway said her father would doze off in a favorite chair — or, at least, that’s the way it appeared.
Which river runs through London?
River Thames.
And with that, Janeway would settle back into his comfortable chair. “He could literally win at Trivial Pursuit in his sleep,” Annie Janeway told the 100 or so family and friends who attended the memorial service.
He also had a keen interest in government affairs and public service, which was something of a family trait. His father served in the Vermont Legislature for more than 20 years, including a stint as Senate president. His younger brother, Harold, was a New Hampshire state senator.
Ed Janeway Sr., a Yale graduate, was self-employed as an investment broker on Wall Street until World War II when he joined the Navy, The New York Times wrote in his 1986 obituary.
Ed Janeway Jr. was born in 1932, three years after the Wall Street crash. “Somehow our family survived the Depression,” Harold Janeway said at the memorial service. “I was never sure how.”
After the war, the family moved to southern Vermont, where Ed Jr. attended Vermont Academy in Saxtons Rivers. As a teenager in boarding school, his love of all things outdoors took hold.
He spent as much time as he could at the family getaway in the Adirondacks. Janeway and his wife, Claude, who died in 2009, were members of the “Adirondack 46ers,” a club dedicated to hikers who have reached all the peaks in the upstate New York mountain range.
The Janeways often invited friends to join them at the retreat. They fished for brook trout during the day and “slept outside in front of the fire on a mattress of pine boughs,” said John Wiggin, a Norwich neighbor.
While his father and younger brother were well-known figures in Twin State political circles, “Ed found ways to be of service to his community in other ways,” said Swett, who lived in Norwich around the same time as Janeway. “Everything he participated in, he became a constructive force.”
He served on Norwich’s planning and cemetery commissions. As a justice of the peace, he listened to property tax appeals and helped out at elections.
In paying tribute at the memorial service, Harold Janeway described his brother as the ultimate joiner.
“You name it, Ed signed up for it,” he said. “I don’t know anyone else who actually belonged to two breakfast groups.”
Ed and his wife moved to Norwich with their two daughters, Annie and Margaret, in the early 1980s.
After owning a bookstore in Rhode Island, Janeway delved into various vocations in the Upper Valley. He worked for several nonprofit organizations and became a well-known substitute teacher in Upper Valley schools. He was coordinator of the Norwich Farmer’s Market.
But his passion was writing. He wrote for various publications, including as a correspondent for the Valley News.
“He was a reporter through and through,” said his daughter Annie.
As a teenager, he worked as a sports writer for a weekly in southern Vermont. Brevity was not a strong suit. In going through his works, Annie came across a paper he had written while at Middlebury College, where he graduated in 1955.
On the paper, his professor wrote, “If I get down on my knees and beg will you leave an inch and a half margin on the paper?”
As a journalist, he took quiet pride in being objective and not injecting his viewpoints in his work. “While you could talk to him about anything, he wasn’t what you’d call opinionated,” Trebitz said.
Henry Scheier, a member of the Norwich Lions Club, would cross paths with Janeway while on walks around town. In his later years, Janeway lived in Wilder, near Scheier’s office.
On occasion, he’d see Janeway waiting for Advance Transit and offer him a ride.
“No, I’ll take the bus,” Janeway responded, politely.
“It was all part of the way he wanted to live his life,” Scheier said.
One step in front of the other.
Jim Kenyon can be reached at jkenyon@vnews.com.
