E. Janell Farris Rue

Funeral services for E. Janell Farris Rue will be held at 12 Noon in Blanchard-St Denis Chapel in Natchitoches LA on Saturday, September 29, 2007 with Reverend Donald Avery and Reverend James Pool officiating. Visitation will be from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon in the funeral home. Burial will be in Memory Lawn Cemetery at Natchitoches. Janell, having previously taught at Bowling Green High School, came to Natchitoches in 1945 to teach at Northwestern State College in the business department by request of Dr. N.B. Morrison, dean of business. She had previously obtained her master of business administration degree from Austin Peabody (later Vanderbilt University) in Bowling Green Kentucky. She had also attended Western University and a summer program at the University of Southern California. At Northwestern she taught typing, short hand, and other business classes until her retirement in 1980, to devote more time to her interests in family, bridge, Sunday school studies, cooking, and sewing. During her teaching career she was one of those who helped to bring typing forward from the dark ages of the manual typewriter into the 20th century with the advent of the electric typewriter. Typewriters may now be viewed in historical museums and stored away in attics. Many of her students had served as soldiers (as had her future husband) and nurses in World War Two. Her husband and sons have often had the experience of meeting up with one of her former students who expressed the greatest admiration and affection for Janell's dedicated and caring teaching. Jacky Smith of the old St. Louis Cardinals professional football team was perhaps her most famous student. Janell was raised in a large family of five sisters, headed by her mother, Clyde Liebling Farris and her father, James Farris, who believed a good education, was worth more than gold. Her sisters are Elizabeth Ann Jones (widow of James Jones of Trenton, KY), of Evansville Indiana, the late Catherine Venable (widow of Keith Venable) of Cadiz, KY, the late Mamie Liebling Bennett (married to the late Reverend Thomas Bennett) of Fort Worth, Texas and Helen Tucker Allen (widow of Otis Allen Sr.) of Greenwood, Mississippi. Mrs. Rue was a sponsor of Delta Zeta sorority and had many friends who taught in the business department, including Miss Ruth Brunner, Mrs. Carol McCoy, Dr. Joseph Johnson, Mr. Robert Easley, and Dr. Johnny Johnson. After teaching at Northwestern for eight years she married William C. Rue (who she had met in 1947) of Natchitoches in 1953, and with whom she recently celebrated her 53rd wedding anniversary. Her sisters as well as most of their husbands were also teachers. They were married in the first Methodist Church of Natchitoches by the Reverend Benedict A. Galloway. She is survived by Billy and their two sons, Joseph W. Rue and Louis K. Rue and granddaughter Megan Guillimette Rue (Joe's daughter). She was preceded in death by her sisters Mamie Bennett and Catherine Venable. She is also survived by her sisters, Elizabeth Ann Jones and Helen Tucker Allen. Moreover, Janell is survived by nephews, nieces, grand and great grand nieces and nephews of Kentucky, Mississippi, Florida, Indiana, Arizona and Massachusetts , too numerous to mention. She leaves many sorority sisters of Beta Sigma Phi and Delta Sigma Epsilon who, along with their loving husbands, were very close friends. She will be missed and fondly remembered by all who knew her.