Janet (Brown) Butts passed away peacefully on Monday; March 24, 2025 surrounded by members of her loving family. Jan was 84 years old, and often remarked that she had lived an interesting life. She was born on February 13, 1941 to Esther M. and Arthur L. Brown at South Shore Hospital, and grew up in Whitman. She graduated from Whitman High School, where she had played softball, basketball, and tennis. She went on to graduate magnum cum laude from the University of Dartmouth. She was a medical technologist at Brockton Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute for many years. She was proud of her work and delighted in being a mentor for several young medical technologists.
Jan enjoyed life and loved to have adventures. For years, after her two daughters were grown, she traveled many times and places with her good friends Sandi, Neil, and Walt. She would love to brag about throwing coins in the Trevi Fountain in Rome, riding a donkey in Santori, Greece, parasailing in the Gulf of Mexico, riding a camel to the pyramids in Egypt, attending the World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, and recently seeing the Great Elephant Migration in Newport, RI with her good friends Joanie Menslage.
Jan met and married Bruce Butts, the love of her life, and her travels continued, particularly going back and forth from their homes in Whitman, then Middleboro, to Naples Florida. During those years, Jan watched her family grow with seven grandchildren and currently twelve great grandchildren. Keeping up with them after retirement provided much joy for Jan, as did her love of learning, playing, tennis, water aerobics, and being outdoors, particularly enjoying yard work. Despite battling and surviving cancer twice, Jan found time to play tennis daily, be President of the Tennis association in Naples Florida, and to volunteer her time in the emergency and oncology clinics in both Plymouth, MA and Naples, FL.
She is predeceased by her parents and brother Richard, her loving husband, Bruce Butts, and her “bosom buddy” of over 70 years, Linda Archibald. She is survived by her daughter Susan Cotter (Stephen) and family, and daughter Sandra King-Lucca (Daniel and family, and stepdaughter in law Cheryl Diltz.
Burial services will be private.