Janet L. Allison

Janet Louise Allison dearly loved her husband, her three sons, her nieces and nephews and her church families — but “above all,” she would tell you, she loved her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She was 92.

She married her high school sweetheart Melvin C. Allison on New Year’s Eve 1952 and served next to him for five decades pastoring Christian and Missionary Alliance churches across Western Pennsylvania and in Virginia. When he died in 2016, they had been married for 62 years. He was, she would tell you, “my own personal Billy Graham.” Her sons, their partners and children survive: Mark and Susanne Van Cleave in Pittsburgh, and Mark’s daughters Mercede and Sydney, and grandson Holden; Paul and Marcie Wolfe and their sons and partners Ryan and Alessandra and Samuel and Claire in New York City; John and Cheryl, in Dover, Del., and their daughters and partners, Rachel and Keegan, Hannah and Miguel, and Bethany and Aaron Baldwin, and their children Athelas, Duke and James. Janet (nee Healy) was always close to her predeceased sister Jean Lonkert’s children Craig, Laurie, Jeff, Barbara and Brenda and her predeceased brother Jim’s children Brandon, Trey, Amanda, and Jamie. Aunt Jan savored every moment catching up with all of them. Her church families hail from New Wilmington, Bedford, Conway, Grove City, and Union City in Western Pennsylvania, Manassas Park, Va., and Danville, Pa. In retirement, Janet came to love the church families at Marion Hill Alliance church in New Brighton, Pa., where she was a recurring soloist and accompanist, and the Greensboro, N.C., Alliance church she attended. Born Feb. 28, 1931, Janet grew up in New Brighton. In high school, she fell for a boy named Mel. They graduated in 1948. The Korean War separated them for two years when he was sent to Italy. Not long after they married, Janet was nearly killed in a collision with a drunken driver. As she healed and they pondered the future, their pastor urged them to train for the ministry at St. Paul (Minn.) Bible College. They graduated in 1958 and, “following God’s call,” headed home to a pulpit in a tiny church.

In addition to pastoring churches, for a couple of years, Janet ran their New Brighton home with the three boys while her evangelist husband held weeklong “end times” revival services at Pittsburgh area churches.

The Allisons for decades were enthusiastic workers and campers at the C&MA’s legendary Mahaffey (Pa.) Camp. Janet was the pianist at tabernacle services. In her teens, Janet first declared her faith in Jesus. She put “faith into action” at Youth for Christ, tearing up the keyboards for a gospel quartet at testimony rallies. In small churches with enthusiastic but wobbly 20-voice choirs, her dynamic piano performances were the bedrock of Christmas and Easter cantatas. So talented was she, the Billy Graham crusade once enlisted her to help rehearse a mass choir formed from dozens of Pittsburgh churches. In her later days she would thrill to the songs of her life, playing an electric keyboard in her bedroom at John and Cheryl’s home to an audience of the family cat and dog. She never cottoned to threats to her faith, believing her dedication to Jesus and his true followers was all she needed to survive the lures and ravages of the secular world. Fiercely protective of her sons, she established with her husband a home with a moral code based on evangelical Christianity, valued hard work with hardscrabble resourcefulness, and readily displayed an open heart for the downtrodden and disenfranchised. She steadfastly believed the Bible contained all of life’s answers and she brokered no other possibilities. Heaven was her life’s goal. She could not wait to see “my Mel” and others she loved who had passed before her. She often said she looked forward to joining “the great choir that would spend eternity glorifying Jesus.” Chances are there’s a seat at the grand piano.

Friends will be received on Saturday October 21, 2023 from 2pm until the time of service at 3pm in the Noll Funeral Home Inc., 333 Third Street, Beaver, PA 15009. Online condolences may be shared at www.nollfuneral.com

She will be buried on Monday October 23, 2023, at her husband’s plot in the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies near Washington, Pa