Janice E. Petersen Jacobsen, age 86 of Redwood Falls, passed away Friday, April 18, 2025 at Garnette Gardens in Redwood Falls. Funeral Services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 23, 2025 at Christ’s Victory Lutheran Church in Redwood Falls. Visitation will be 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 22 AT THE CHURCH and will continue one hour prior to the service at the church on Wednesday. Interment will be at the Redwood Falls Cemetery. Stephens Funeral Service – Redwood Valley Funeral Home is assisting the family with arrangements.

Janice Elaine Dohrmann was born July 23, 1938 to Wesley & Ethel Gent Dohrmann of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota.  Unlike today, she was born in a house that was the family Doctor’s home on Current Street just south of the Lake.  She grew up on the farm with one brother, Richard.  The daughter of a dairy farmer & recently retired country school teacher, her growing-up years included cats & kittens, amazing mud pies, 4-H, bicycling, & much more.  She attended school at Sleepy Eye Public, graduating from there in 1956.  She was a flute player in concert band, marching band, a trio, and later learned to lead the marching band down the street, around corners and through intersections, keeping the pace as a majorette.  She and her best friend Joanie Wilfahrt were often found together… Jan on flute and Joanie on piano.  Both sang, solo and as a duet. They shared their talent this way as young women and later on in the 1990’s traveling the area playing for retired folks at Garnette in Redwood Falls, Wood Dale, Sunwood, Franklin, & Belview.  Mom’s love of music was also shared when she’d be asked to sing at funerals, weddings, and church services in and around Redwood Falls.  She remarked that sometimes one of us would get up on a Sunday and ask her “What church will we be going to today?”

Jan was a caregiver at a young age, working in the Sleepy Eye Hospital for $0.50 per hour. Following High School graduation, she went to the U of M St. Paul Campus, studying in the LPN program.  In March of 1957, just six months after starting in that program, she came back to Brown County to spend more time with Donald A. Petersen of Redwood Falls, who had just finished two years of active duty in the U.S. Army, 82^nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, NC.  By June they were engaged, and their wedding happened in September to coincide with the best man’s “leave” from active duty in the Strategic Air Command.  They made their home on a farm in section 34 of Paxton Township.  They represented the second generation on the family farm, growing corn, soybeans, small grains, and an expanding herd of Hereford cows, which remained on the land until 1982.

She had been raised in the Methodist church in Sleepy Eye, getting a solid foundation in faith that continued her entire life.  In marriage, Jan joined her husband attending First English Lutheran Church in Redwood Falls.  Many years later, she became a founder at Christ Victory Lutheran Church.

Mom & Dad didn’t just raise crops and cattle.  Their sons Randy (deceased at 2 ½ months), Rick, Mike, Chad, and Bill came to them over a period of nine years… during which time they moved ½ mile west to the farm where the boys were raised.   It was on that farmplace on the Paxton and Three Lakes boundary that Mom, Dad, and the boys grew… learning to farm, ride ponies and horses, mow grass, fix almost any machine, tend livestock, paint, fix fence, birth calves, and help Mom keep the home, yard, and garden… clean and neat.

Mom and Dad were ever supportive with 4H, FFA, sports, and much more, even finding the time to travel just enough to see all four borders of the continental U.S. with the sons before things took a large turn in 1980, when at 41 years of age, Mom was preceded in death by Dad in June of that year.  It was then that her strength and resolve came to light like never before.  With a farm to run, two still at home, and two in college, a lot of critical decisions were made in a hurry.  She would begin working in town, part time at first, at the bank on South Washington Street.  She saw numerous assignments there, from sorting checks to care of the vault & safety deposit boxes, operating the drive up window, and eventually customer service “under the big dome”.  She thrived there, earning the trust of many local folks, and even took on the bank’s travel incentive program called Prime Timers.

  By that time she had met Loren Jacobsen of Sleepy Eye, MN.  They were married on June 28^th of 1986, beginning a 33 year adventure that included at first, her Vision Lane Apartment, then a house on 3^rd Street.  The 3^rd street house saw many improvements during their 30+ years there… mostly done by Loren himself.  As the family grew, the house grew.  In 2001, Mom made the big decision to retire from the bank, and Loren had begun scaling back his rental property enterprise.

Mom and Loren were very much at home in Redwood Falls, and spent many years traveling around the world, seeing Australia, New Zealand, much of Europe, Canada, & the United Kingdom.  Another favorite destination for Loren & Jan was Cancun, going there almost every year. 

Even with the move to town, Mom never stopped loving farm life.  She was supportive to Loren’s farming venture on Highway 68, and she even hopped in a semi from time to time to get a ride to the sugar beet piling site.  In later years when Loren turned over that farm to the family to run, he and Mom would often “go for a cruise” and monitor the progress of planting and harvest.

Mom’s story would be hugely incomplete without mention of grandchildren, their education that she always encouraged, and down the road, her endless joy of becoming a great-grandmother 31 times!  The most exciting period for that chapter brought seven more of them into the world in a little over a year.  To hear her talk about each one… was magical.

She made great effort to be at each of the grandkids’ graduation parties, providing a generous gift to further their schooling.  She was also a faithful charter member of Christ Victory Lutheran Church, as she strongly believed in its mission.  Jan rarely missed a Sunday!

Jan is survived by her sons; Rick [Kim] Petersen of Redwood Falls, Mike [Mary] Petersen of Redwood Falls, Chad [Heather] Petersen of River Falls, WI, Bill [Kimberlee] of Hutchinson MN, stepdaughter Carrie of Minneapolis; There are also 16 grandchildren & 31 (and counting!) great grandchildren.

Jan was preceded in death by her parents, Wesley and Ethel Dohrmann, husbands Loren & Donald, and infant son Randy.

Blessed be the memories we share with Mom, Jan E. Jacobsen.