Virginia Janyne McLeod (1945-) went by her middle name, its unique spelling beyond the grasp of her well-meaning uncle. A 1954 article in the Whittier News stated that said uncle, local realtor Dick Stepp, had honored his niece with this street for her fourth birthday. Apparently he screwed up both her name and her birth year, as Janyne would have only been three when Janine Drive was named in 1948 on a tract owned by Dick’s parents Howard and Bessie Stepp. At any rate, Janyne McLeod was born in San Francisco and raised in Palo Alto, only coming to Whittier to visit her uncle and grandparents. (Her mother Sally was Dick’s sister.) She attended Willamette University in Salem, OR in 1963 and married her classmate Darrell Slabaugh days after graduation. The couple had at least two daughters and wound up in Washington state.
Find it on the map:
