Obituary of Janet Millea Bye

Janet Millea Bye, 97, died Monday, January 23, 2023 in Minnetonka.  She was born on November 7, 1925 in Duluth to Mark J. Millea and Florence Johnson Millea.  She was raised in West Duluth and graduated from Denfeld in 1943. During World War II, she worked for the Walter Butler Shipbuilders in Duluth before moving to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1947. 

On July 3, 1948, she married Richard ‘Dick’ Lister Bye, also of West Duluth and the brother of her best friend, Katherine Bye (Murphy).  After Dick graduated from law school at the University, Janet and Dick returned to Duluth, where Dick practiced law and Janet served the community while raising their three children. 

Among other things, Janet served as President of the Duluth Junior League, Northwood Children’s Home, Law Wives of the 11^th District Bar Association, and the Friends of the Duluth Public Library; was a Trustee of the St. Louis County Heritage and Arts Center and of First United Methodist Church; was a board member of the Duluth Automobile Association, St. Lukes Hospital (secretary), and the Duluth Superior Symphony Association (secretary). She was a docent at Glensheen, Director of the Parents Program at College of St. Scholastica, and Director of Duluth’s Central Hillside United Ministries (CHUM), and active in PEO and the Women’s Club. She contemplated running for Duluth City Council but demurred after Dick said that nobody would vote for a recently divorced woman.

In addition to activities and achievements, Janet and Dick were long time season ticket holders to the Symphony, Duluth Playhouse, and UMD Hockey.  They were active outdoors and in the days of laced boots, cable bindings and rope tows, taught their kids to ski at Mont du Lac, Lutsen, Indianhead, Powderhorn, and Giant’s Ridge before there was a Spirit Mountain. 

Janet inherited her love of music from her Irish father and was particularly fond of opera (telling one of her grandchildren that Pavarotti could leave his shoes under her bed anytime). The sounds of music frequently wafted through her home – live piano and voice from Janet, Saturday afternoon at the Met radio broadcasts, or from her extensive collection of records and, later, CD’s.

Janet loved to travel – trips out east to visit her father’s family, attend the 1939 World’s Fair in NY, and to see her brother graduate from the Coast Guard Academy. Travels continued after she married Dick, travelling together on train trips out west to ski and across Canada and on numerous cross country car trips. Although Dick did most of the driving on these trips, Janet drove cross country several times on her own to visit her kids when Dick was not available. After the kids were born, Dick persuaded Janet to embark on a series of family camping trips - a houseboat trip on Basswood Lake (before the BWCA was established) and pop up trailer trips to Yellowstone, around Lake Superior, and a big eastern swing to Montreal’s Expo 67, Boston, New York, and Washington. Despite the terrible weather that Janet seemed to attract, the kids remember these trips fondly but Janet was known to send postcards to friends begging them to remind her how awful they were and to never let her go again. After the kids left the nest, they resumed more civilized travel, visiting Alaska to see her brother Mark and making several trips to Europe.

Loving the outdoors but realizing that more camping trips were out of the question, Dick and Janet built a cabin on Lake Beauregard in Northern Wisconsin in 1971. There, as extensively documented by Janet in photo scrapbooks, they enjoyed entertaining friends and living the cabin life - walking, swimming, boating, golf and tennis in the summer, and cross country skiing and snowmobiling in the winter (and arguing about when the grilled lamb would be ready at all times of the year).

In 1997, Janet and Dick retired to Bella Vista, AR, where they continued to enjoy golf and tennis and serving their new community.  After Dick died in May 2007, Janet returned to Duluth, and in 2017 she moved to the Twin Cities to be nearer to family.

In a 1994 time capsule, she wrote she wanted to be remembered “as a caring person, a person who likes people and new experiences, a faithful friend and a pretty good mother.”

Janet is survived by one daughter, Kristine Bye Strandness (Paul) of Wayzata; two sons, Richard L. Bye, Jr. (Deborah McComber) of Morristown, N.J., and Jonathan M. Bye (Susan) of Minneapolis; six grandchildren, Drew Strandness (Fawn), Emily Bye, Erin Bye, Jillian Strandness Lushman (Tony), Peter Bye and Alexander Bye (Emily Williams); three great-grandchildren; and a brother Mark J. Millea and his wife Esther Millea of Junea, Alaska and their children Mark and Erin.  A private service for family will be held.  Memorial contributions may be made to the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra or the First United Methodist Church.