Skip to content

Obit – Mrs. Janice Thompson Massey

Mrs. Janice Thompson Massey, of Lebanon, died peacefully at 5:27 a.m. Sunday morning August 30, 2020 at their West End Heights home following an extended illness. Mrs. Massey was 74.

Funeral services from the Ligon & Bobo Funeral Home in Lebanon were conducted Tuesday afternoon September 1st at 1 p.m. with her nephew Bro. Floyd Massey officiating. Burial was in the Garden of Everlasting Life at the Smith County Memorial Gardens in Carthage.

Born Janice Ann Thompson at the McFarland Hospital in Lebanon on February 23, 1946, she was one of three children and the only daughter of longtime Chestnut Mound merchant, the late Lillard Earl “Butch’ Thompson who died at the age of 58 on November 7, 1980 and Estelle Phillips Thompson who died at the age of 90 on April 19, 2017.

A brother, Tommy Wayne Thompson, also preceded Mrs. Massey in death on February 27, 2018 at the age of 60.

She was the wife of her high school sweetheart, George Rayburn Massey, an Elmwood Community native to whom she was married in 1965 and George was the son of longtime Elmwood Community merchants, the late Taft and Ruth Woodard Massey.

Reared in the Chestnut Mound Community, Mrs. Massey was a 1964 graduate of Smith County High School where she majored in science and business education.

She was a member of the Future Homemakers of America, the office staff, and her senior year was a member of the Black & Gold staff, the Latin Club and her sophomore, junior and senior years was a member of the Beta club.

It was said of her in her 1964 yearbook that she was: “gentle, joyous, ideal and she raises your spirits from low to high”.

Following high school she graduated from the Southern Academy of Clinical Technology.

Mrs. Massey was retired from the University Medical Center in Lebanon with fifty years of service as a Medical Technologist.

Mrs. Massey was a member of the Chestnut Mound United Methodist Church.

Surviving in addition to her husband of fifty five years are their two daughters, Belinda Massey Mathis and husband Jim of Mt. Juliet, Jennifer Massey (Jerrod Meyerink) of Hermitage; two grandsons, Samuel Clenton Mathis and Noah George Mathis; brother, Phillip Thompson and wife Cathey of Burkesville, Kentucky.

LIGON & BOBO of LEBANON