Janelle McMullan

Janelle (Bush) McMullan, age 84, of Sun Prairie, WI, passed away after a long battle with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) on Monday September 21st at Sun Prairie Senior Living Skilled Nursing facility. She was born on October 7th, 1941, in Kansas City, Missouri to Harvey Bush and Flora Jeanette (Brock) Bush.

Janelle was best known for her passion for music. She played the flute in band throughout her school years and loved to sing. No matter what song was playing, she could harmonize perfectly, even if she never heard the song before. She especially loved organ music, so much so that she refused to attend any church that didn’t have one. She graduated from the UW Madison with a degree in Spanish and worked for years in the International division of Cuna/Cuna Mutual Insurance Group before retiring to care for her husband Gordon McMullan, who passed away in 2001.

Janelle then moved around the country with her daughter Michelle and her family, spending most of her time with her dogs (an Australian Shepherd rescue named Katie, followed by a Cocker Spaniel rescue named Maggie) and playing with her grandchildren, Drew and Sean. She lived in Tulsa Oklahoma for 4 years and Redmond, Oregon for 3 years before returning to the Madison WI area in 2013. She especially loved living near the Sisters mountains in Oregon, because it reminded her of living with her parents in Fort Collins Colorado when she was a child, her fondest memory of growing up.

In 2018, Janelle was diagnosed with PSP and spent her final years receiving treatment in a senior living facility, where she was known as “Trivia Queen,” because she did so well in trivia games. Janelle was proud of her “Bush sense of humor” (named after her Bush family lineage that leaned heavily into pun humor) and held onto it, making people laugh, until the very end.

Janelle is survived by her daughter Michelle (McMullan) Harper, son-in-law Curtis Harper, and grandchildren Drew and Sean Harper, as well as her stepson Ron McMullan, his wife Sherry McMullan and grandchildren Benjamin and Donovan McMullan.