Sharron Kay Purbaugh Janota was born December 7, 1940, in Lincoln, Nebraska, the second of four children to parents Maurice and Mable Purbaugh. She died peacefully in her sleep in Katy, Texas at the home she shared with Ed, her husband of 58 years, on September 7, 2022, at the age of 81.

A beloved wife, mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Sharron was a resident of Katy for 47 years, and is perhaps best known in the Katy community as the owner and operator of Janota Art and Frame, a picture framing shop that served the Katy area for 20 years.

During her life, Sharron was an actress, a singer, an accordion player, a high school English teacher, a painter, an entrepreneur, a successful small business owner, and a voracious reader and lifelong learner, always pursuing one new thread of interest after another, and always looking to deepen her understanding of the world and, especially, the people in it.

Sharron lived her early life in Lincoln, Nebraska. After graduating from University High School in 1959 where she was a baton-twirling majorette, an award-winning writer on the school newspaper and a member of the Dramatics Club, she attended The University of Nebraska and majored in Speech and English. There, she acted in numerous roles, including as Anne in The Diary of Anne Frank.

During college, Sharron spent two summers in Estes Park, Colorado participating in the summer stock theatre program at the Dark Horse Theatre. After graduating, she began teaching high school English at East High School in Denver.

Sharron met Eddie Janota, the love of her life, in 1963 after flirting with him from her little white Austin Healy Sprite on the freeway between Lincoln and Denver. She followed him when he pulled off for gas and waved him over from the side of the freeway. They were married SIX WEEKS later in Denver on December 3, 1963. They remained in love and devoted for life, “laughing with and at each other” (Ed’s words) for 58 years.

In 1975, Sharron and Ed and their three young daughters settled permanently in Katy. Sharron started several successful businesses: one as a cake decorator, and one cleaning new-construction homes. It was around this time that she took an oil painting class and discovered a latent talent. She eventually transitioned to watercolors and began selling her trademark iris paintings all over the Katy area and at art shows around the country.

Painting eventually led to an interest in picture framing, and in 1989, when the crafts store she had been managing shut its doors, Sharron jumped on the opportunity to purchase all of the picture framing equipment and opened Janota Art and Frame, which she operated until her retirement in 2009.

Sharron could talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime. She was a laid-back and accepting person, and she gravitated toward interesting and unusual people and ideas: other artists like herself, actors, painters, performers. She was a phenomenal listener, full of wise advice, delivered with warmth and generosity. Sharron will be remembered by all who knew and loved her as intelligent, funny, supportive, gentle, encouraging, cute as a button, and a little bit sassy. And, in her children’s totally unbiased opinion, THE BEST MOM IN THE UNIVERSE.

Sharron is preceded in death by her mother Mable Dappen Purbaugh, father Maurice Purbaugh, and nephew Scott Pierce.

She is survived by her husband Ed Janota Jr., daughter Christine Janota, daughter Cathy Sheridan and her husband Tony Sheridan, daughter Amy Janota and her husband Gary Ennis; grandchildren Lucas Sheridan, Samantha Sheridan and her fiancé Raymond Silva, Allison Taube and her fiancé Michael Falsone, Austin Merritt, Milo Ennis, and Finn Ennis; great-grandchildren Mia Silva and Cruz Silva; sister Nadine Pierce and her husband Dick Pierce, sister Linda Wilson and her husband Jack Tarr, brother Tom Purbaugh and his wife Karen; former sons-in-law Chad Merritt and Gary Taube, and numerous nieces and nephews.

The celebration of Sharron’s life is ongoing among those who loved her, with arrangements for an official gathering in the planning stages.