Janice Louise Barczynski, 78, of Reading, PA, passed away at home on Thanksgiving evening, November 28, 2024, surrounded by her family, after losing her long and courageous battle with respiratory disease and leukemia.

She was born Janice Louise Hornberger in Reading, PA on September 24, 1946 to the late Evelyn Marie Parsons and Gilbert Thomas Hornberger. When she was a young girl, her parents separated, whereafter she and several of her eight siblings became wards of Bethany Children’s home in Womelsdorf, PA, where she would spend her teenage years and remain until she graduated from Conrad Weiser High School. 

Hers was a hardscrabble upbringing, and she had an extremely colorful youth working on farms, riding horses, hunting, smoking cigarettes, racing dirt track sprint cars, and even taking her lumps in local roller derby. She was very industrious, a gifted seamstress, making her own clothes, countless wedding gowns and bridesmaids’ dresses. She cut and styled women’s hair with no formal beauty school training. She held jobs as a short order cook in diners and truck stops and as an  executive secretary for the Allentown Chamber of Commerce. She crocheted beautiful blankets and made patchwork quilts. She had the most beautiful cursive handwriting. She absolutely adored babies. She maintained family ties and kept in touch with letters and calls to distant relatives and old friends all over the country. She baked amazing cookies and pies, and decorated elaborate cakes for birthdays and weddings, a talent she passed down to her daughters. She took it upon herself to bake birthday cakes for the kids at the children’s home where she had spent her formative years after she had heard that there was no one who had ever thought to do so- a gesture that inspired Bethany Children’s Home to bestow their Alumnus of the Year Award upon Janice this very year.

Shortly after high school, while working as a diner waitress, she met and later married the late, Christopher John Barczynski, of Lebanon, PA on August 2, 1966, and the couple had four children- Christopher, Jr., Anthony, Catherine, and Juila. The family moved many times around central and eastern Pennsylvania, spending many years in the Lehigh Valley and eventually settling in Mohnton. She and her husband were very involved with their children’s extracurricular activities in sports and marching band, where Janice became affectionately known as  Mrs. B. to hundreds of kids  at Bethlehem Catholic, Saucon Valley, and Governor Mifflin High Schools.   

If there was one constant in Janice’s life, it was caring for others. Over the decades, she made selfless sacrifices for her family, and took in relatives and friends experiencing hardship, opening her home to those who needed the help. After raising 4 children of their own, she and her husband, Chris, began foster caring for children from the Philadelphia foster care program, caring for dozens of children. Through their work in this program, they fell in love with four children in their care and eventually adopted them, lending the Barczynski name to Reginald, Saleem, Samirah, and Shawn and raising them close to Janice’s birthplace.

Janice’s great pride was in her family, spending countless hours tracing back its history to Germany and to the Hornbergers who emigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1800’s. She enjoyed telling the stories of famous and important relatives, but she especially enjoyed any opportunity she had to tell perfect strangers about the successes of her children and doting on her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She had hoped to live long enough to meet another great-grandson due in February to grandson, Jacob, and his wife, Angela, and to see her daughter Shawn marry her fiancé, Maddox in the coming year.

This was a woman tough as nails and with the capacity for tremendous love. She endured everything this life threw at her. She weathered the storms and tribulations of a 46 year marriage, and after his death in 2012, she survived another 12 years without her life partner. She raised 8 children, and was a foster mother and adopted mother to so many more. 

She is preceded in death by her parents, Evelyn Parsons and Gilbert Hornberger, her step-mother, Rose Hornberger, by her brothers, William, Robert, Richard, David, and Thomas Hornberger, her sister Barbara Pate, and her husband, Christopher Barczynski.

She is survived by her brothers, Gary and Dennis Hornberger, by her children, Chris Barczynski and wife, Christine Wang, Anthony Barczynski and wife, Regina Barczynski, Catherine Kulp and husband, Richard Kulp, Juila Barczynski, Reginald Barczynski, Saleem Barczynski, Samirah Shappell and husband, Dewey Shappell, and Shawn Barczynski, by her grandchildren Allison DiMarco and husband, David DiMarco, Alexis Zerbe and husband, Cody Zerbe, Jacob Barczynski and wife, Angela Barczynski, Anthony Barczynski, Destiny Kulp, and Miles Shappell, and by her great-grandchildren, Luca and Jackson DiMarco. 

A memorial service will be held at CrossWay Church, 85 Chateau Drive in Mohnton, PA 19540 on Saturday, December 7th at 1pm. Coffee and light desserts will be served afterwards in the church’s Connections Cafe. 

In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to Bethany Children’s Home in Janice’s honor. A private family internment ceremony will lay Janice next to her husband, Chris, at Forest Hills Cemetery.