Noelle Bettina Januszewski (nee Schumacher) died peacefully at the Pearl in Rolling Meadows after a long struggle with a series of debilitating illnesses.
She was born in Waterbury, Ct., on July 19, 1946, to war refugee parents, Sylvia (Zangger) and Joachim Schumacher. They had escaped a series of European countries before reaching American shores, where they were finally safe. She grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut, and enjoyed sailing, swimming, singing, and playing a wide variety of musical instruments. She sang with the madrigals, played on her high school tennis team, and belonged to the National Honor Society. She was struck with a thyroid imbalance at age 15, and it was removed. She began exhibiting symptoms of bipolar disorder, a disease that she would battle for the entirety of her life.
Noelle moved to Chicago in her 20s to attend the American Conservatory of Music on a scholarship. It was there that she would meet her future husband, Tadeusz Januszewski. They fell in love and married when she was 27 on Dec. 29, 1973. They lived for a few years in New York state before moving back to Chicago. While living in Chicago near his family, they had their one and only child, a daughter Christina Januszewski on May 23, 1981. In 1983, they moved to the suburbs, where she would remain for the entirety of her life. When she was 45, Noelle lost her husband to heart disease and diabetes. She moved to Lombard with her daughter to have some family support. In 2001, she decided to move to Elmhurst to have a quieter life and a more manageable living situation at The Willows. There she would meet many fine friends that she would have for the rest of her life.
Noelle loved the simple joys in life, good chocolate, good conversation, and several good walks. She loved card games and good food and had a sense of adventure that she would pass on to future generations through day trips to local museums and endless car rides “just for the heck of it.” She loved classical music and could play several pieces by heart. She had a sweet side that everyone appreciated. She was very independent and preferred to live on her own until it was no longer feasible due to nerve issues and the long-term consequences of Covid-19.
She is preceded in death by her father (1982), her husband (1992), her mother (2002), and her brother, Mark (2017). She is survived by her daughter, Christina Januszewski (Ryan Sarsany), and her beloved grandson, Sebastian Sarsany. She has decided to donate her body to science, the same as her parents had done, in hopes of helping those who have dealt with similar ailments, including manic depression, neuropathy, and multiple cases of COVID-19.
Arrangements provided by the family.
