Stories

Below is a collection of stories, articles, etc written about Janet. If you have anything to contribute, new or old, please contact Jennifer Yip.

Iron Warrior

2007-01-24 - Volume 28, Issue 1

The Iron Warrior, University of Waterloo’s engineering student campus newsletter, ran a multi-page piece as a tribute to Janet. Many of her friends and classmates submitted stories about Janet. Click here to see the condensed PDF version of the newsletter.

'The Record' Local Newspaper Lifetimes Feature

December 2017

The Record, a local newspaper in Waterloo, published a Lifetimes feature on Janet’s life. Click here to see a scanned copy of the article.

Janet Yip – Our third floor tenant

Written by Bill and Claire Jenkins

Editor’s note: Bill and Claire Jenkins were Janet’s last landlord. She was living in Brockville, Ontario, a city of 20,000 people, for her final co-op term at Proctor & Gamble.

We, that is, my wife Claire and I, first met Janet through an introduction by Simon Girard, a U. of Laval student doing a work term at Proctor and Gamble, here in Brockville. Simon and his friend Catherine Cote rented our third floor apartment from May until the end of August 2006.

Simon spoke positively about our apartment when he met Janet as she visited P&G for an interview prior to starting her work term. Before long, she came around and had a chance to look at the two bedroom top floor of our two and one-half storey home. Simon and Catherine pointed out all the great features of living here. Janet asked very few questions about the apartment. She was more interested in how things worked at P&G and the social life in little old Brockville.

She explained that she was also looking on behalf of her friend Brian. “He’s just a friend,” she assured me, “Not a boy friend.” She left to consider whether or not to take the apartment, giving me a big smile and a fiery look from under her black cap, perched low on her forehead. After she left, I commented to Claire that she had a lot of spunk and would do well in engineering. Claire had noticed Janet’s strength of character too.

Before long, she and Brian were ensconced in the apartment, working away at P&G, lugging home bags of groceries, cooking wonderful concoctions. Janet had an old Civic and Brian had a bicycle; although most days, they both rode in the car to work, leaving at 7:30 and returning about 4:30.

We listed our home for sale in early October. We had informed Janet and Brian of this possibility but assured them that it would not mean kicking them out if we happened to sell it. During the first couple of weeks of the listing, there were a number of showings that also included a tour of the apartment (with the usual 24-hour advance notice). Janet prided herself on having the place, especially her room, neat and tidy; and acted like a den mother to get Brian to make his bed and pick up his dishes that he conveniently kept on the floor of his bedroom, along with a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich.

One time I was informing them of a viewing the next day and we had a brief three-way conversation about how small-town and gossipy Brockvillians were. Janet had been swimming at the Y. When she mentioned to a perfect stranger that she was working at P&G, the person knew all about her, where she lived and the fact that she was co-habiting with Brian. Brian piped up “Everyone thinks we’re sleeping together.” And they both had a laugh. I assured them that this was simply a characteristic of a very small non-university town and that if they were in Kingston or Waterloo, no one would notice or care.

Although we would chat with Brian and Janet briefly as they carried their laundry to the basement laundry room, we did not really get into any deep discussions. Janet had applied for a passport, so we discussed that and assured her we would let her know as soon as a notice arrived about it.

“Where do you plan to go?” I asked.

“Nowhere in particular,” she replied. “I just want to be prepared in case I want to travel.”

She was a well-organised young lady.

Some weekends, Janet and Brian would scoot off to Toronto by train. They went to Kingston occasionally and Janet went to Ottawa a couple of times.

One Sunday night, around midnight, I heard a fair bit of commotion on the street. A tow-truck lowered Janet’s car into the driveway. She had been in Ottawa, driving on the Queensway from Kanata towards highway 416. She moved into the right hand lane to turn onto highway 416 and found to her surprise that a bus had been passing her in the bus lane on the right hand side and it sideswiped her car. (She wasn’t aware of the bus lanes.) Luckily, she wasn’t hurt and the car simply had a few dents in the passenger side. Her Ottawa boy friend responded to her cell phone call and drove her here.

She took the train to Toronto the next weekend and I kidded her that she didn’t want to show her banged up car to her parents. She said, however, that she really felt OK about driving around the city but wanted to avoid highway 401 for now. I reassured her that she would not have any trouble.

We really did not see much of each other during the two and a half months Janet was here. One day, she was carrying laundry down and we chatted briefly. She had a toothache and was planning to have a wisdom tooth removed. Her face was a little swollen and I said the usual sympathetic things. We were dismayed when she went to the hospital and terribly shocked when she passed away so suddenly.

We knew Janet for such a short time but we could see her sense of humour, the flash of her eyes, her innate beauty. We were happy to be a friend.

At the airport as we waited to fly to Vancouver for Christmas, next to us sat a family with two young girls, waiting to fly to Vietnam for a visit to their grandparents’ home. I gave the eldest one a copy of Janet’s little book “Mr. Hungryman” and, in return, she gave me an autographed sheet of art work that she had prepared, duly signed “Jennifer Vo”.

She and her sister loved the story. Perhaps the spirit of Janet Yip, with her wonderful, ironic sense of humour, will lighten a few more lives.

We miss her and know that everyone who knew her misses her too.

Federation of Students Official Press Release on Janet Yip

2006-12-01

Click here to read the Federation of Students (FEDS) official press release on Janet’s passing. FEDS is the student government at University of Waterloo wherein Janet was elected as Engineering Councillor her last two years.

Iron Warrior

2005-07-27 - Volume 26, Issue 10

This is an article that I found in the Iron Warrior (University of Waterloo’s engineering student campus newsletter) which details Janet’s election as Engineering Councillor. It also includes a blurb written by Janet herself on the changes she envisions. Click here to see the PDF version of the newsletter.