Janet Mavis Abbott

August 5, 1941 - June 8, 2026

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Jan and Dwight were happily married for 60 years.

Janet M. Abbott (Jan), age 84, of Palos Verdes Estates, California, died June 8, 2026. She lived for 43 years in Palos Verdes, where she and her husband, A. Dwight Abbott, raised their children and remained until Dwight’s passing in January 2025. Jan and Dwight were happily married for 60 years. For the last 5 years of Dwight’s life, he lovingly cared for Jan, as she had done for him for the previous 55 years. After Dwight’s death, Jan moved to Lake Oswego, Oregon, to be near her son Doug, his wife Lisa, and their family.

Jan was born in Willmar, Minnesota, the eldest of four children, to proudly Norwegian parents, Della (Thompson) and Wendell Kyseth. She grew up in the small town of Kandiyohi, Minnesota, where her father owned a turkey ranch. That turkey ranch changed Jan’s life. After Thanksgiving each year, her family had the full month of December off and they would vacation in either California or Florida. Jan was 14 years old when she first saw Southern California; she decided immediately that she wanted to live there. Shortly after graduating high school and taking a business course in Minneapolis, Jan drove to Southern California where she found secretarial work in the aerospace industry. It was here that Jan met Dwight, the love of her life, an aeronautical engineer, who was also a transplanted Midwesterner. She and Dwight married in 1964. Although Dwight’s work took them to Potomac, Maryland, for seven years, Jan’s strong love for California brought them back.

For her 50th high school reunion, Jan wrote that she was most proud of two things in life: earning her college degree in sociology and raising two sons, Steve and Doug, whom, she said, “have grown up to be accomplished, caring people.” Another great accomplishment of Jan’s was researching and writing a book entitled “Female, Forty and Fit” which Simon & Schuster accepted for publication. That book combined Jan’s belief and dedication to physical fitness – a new thing for women in the 1970s – and her enjoyment of books of all kinds. Jan loved to read, starting at a young age when she was known to “always have her nose in a book” and continued throughout her life. She used her love of reading to help others as well, by visiting homebound women to read to them and by delivering and retrieving library books for them as well.

In retirement, Dwight took the public role of being on city council of Palos Verdes Estates and having a term as Mayor, while Jan supported her husband’s work behind the scenes. She so enjoyed her time as “first lady” of their small city which they so loved.

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Jan was most proud of two things in life: earning her college degree in sociology and raising two sons, Steve and Doug.

Jan loved her six grandchildren and Jan and Dwight visited them often. Visiting grandchildren became their form of vacation, and everyone’s life was enriched by that choice. Jan will be greatly missed by sons, Steven (and wife Meg, of Austin, Texas) and Doug (and his wife Lisa), and by her grandchildren Jack, Alexander, Sam, Gavin, Margaret and Charlee.