Len & Jan
A Love Rekindled
It began on Rhett Avenue in Huntsville, Alabama, on a warm August day in 1958. I had just earned my driver’s license and was proudly navigating my father’s 1956 Chevy station wagon. My younger brother Rick was riding beside me when we spotted three girls walking down the street. Rick nudged me and said, “I know them let’s offer a ride.” I nodded and replied, “Get in the back seat and put the blonde up front.” That blonde was Jan, and from that moment on, she was my girlfriend for the next five years.
We were young, growing, and chasing life. As college unfolded, we drifted apart, and soon I heard that Jan was getting married. I remember feeling a quiet kind of sadness, a sense that a chapter had closed before I was ready. Life, as it does, kept moving. I went on to build a career in the financial markets, carrying the memories with me, even if tucked away.
Forty years later, life brought me back to Huntsville. I had returned to help care for my elderly mother. One afternoon, she came home from the grocery store and casually mentioned running into Mrs. Case Jan’s mother. My heart stirred. I asked, “How is Jan?” Mom’s face softened, her voice gentle: “Sad. Jan’s husband passed away.” Then, with the kind of knowing only a mother carries, she looked me in the eye and said, “Call her. I always loved her.”
So I did. And just like that, our story resumed not where it left off, but deeper, wiser, full of grace. Within a year, we were married. The next fifteen years were the happiest of my life. Jan became my partner not only in love but in purpose. She traveled with me to Panama twenty-three times, meeting the artists I had grown to cherish. And she came to love them just as fiercely. It was Jan who inspired the guiding principle of what TraderBrock would become: “Let every dollar be reinvested. Let this not just be a business, but a mission.” A Christian mission of fairness, dignity, and cultural preservation.
In 2017, Jan passed away. The loss was profound. But TraderBrock lives on, not only as a business, but as a living tribute to Jan’s unwavering heart for people, for purpose, and for the beauty found in forgotten corners of the world. Her love continues to guide every decision, every journey, and every piece we share.