Retirement usually brings rest and relaxation to a person’s life. To Janelle Olson, retirement has, unexpectedly, brought fresh ideas, new connections, and new opportunities to learn. Even though she’s been legally blind since she was a child, retirement brought her to North Dakota Vision Services/School for the Blind to gain new information and skills.
The youngest of four daughters, Janelle and her sisters – twins Karlyn and Kathy and middle sister Loris – grew up on a farm near Williston, ND. When Kathy was 8 years old, she started having vision issues and was diagnosed with Cone Rod Dystrophy, which is a deterioration of the cones in the retina. Then, when Loris was 8, she, too, began experiencing sight loss. Finally, at the same age, Janelle was also given the diagnosis. Three of the four daughters have it, but instead of any of them considering themselves unlucky, they were all grateful to have had good vision until the age of 8 – and each other. “We had our own built-in support group with our sisters,” Janelle says. As they’ve gotten older, “the deterioration continues. I can tell when I go someplace and realize that the last time I was there, I saw it better.”
Growing up, all four daughters attended public school. There “was never any question we were going to grow up, get married, get a job, have children,” Janelle says. “We didn’t really even talk about it,” Janelle says, referring to their vision loss. She credits their parents, Olga and Olaf, for their outlook. “I always thought I’d become a teacher because our mother was, but I became an advocate because our mother was,” Janelle says. She adds, “Our mother was the one who read homework assignments to this often unappreciative teenager. It was our mother who talked to the teachers, telling them about our limited vision and our need to have tests read to us outside the classroom.”
While the School for the Blind, which was residential at the time, was known to Janelle while growing up, it was understood that she’d never be sent there. She remembers both Kathy and Loris going to short-term training programs as adults prior to it becoming North Dakota Vision Services/School for the Blind. In school, Janelle and Loris were given large print books which likely came from NDSB, but she herself received no formal training from the School for the Blind. That is, until one short session near the end of her working career, and she then attended two adult week sessions in 2023 and 2025 after retiring.
Shortly before she was due to retire from her career as a Disability Advocate with the ND Protection & Advocacy Project in 2019, she was pressured to switch from a desktop computer to a laptop. Such a big tech change can be stressful for any employee, but when you add in vision loss and having to learn new accessibility features, it can be downright scary. “I didn’t want to learn new tricks,” Janelle says. But, when she finally gave in, she realized that this change was worth it. “I was just kicking myself! Why didn’t I do this earlier?” she says. A laptop gave her greater portability, and she realized that she could have spent the many evenings and weekends she had to work not in her office but at home, if she had been using a laptop.
She didn’t want to give up her laptop with retirement but then realized she had a secret weapon: North Dakota Vision Services/School for the Blind. She called Paul Olson, the Superintendent, and asked if someone from his tech department could help her set up the same laptop, which she would order and pay for, for her own personal use. Paul, of course, said yes, and Janelle was introduced to Dave Olson, NDVS/SB’s Network and Computer Specialist. “He got it all set up for me,” Janelle explained, “and then COVID hit.” After their initial meeting in person was postponed, Janelle and her husband drove to Devils Lake to meet Dave, and, at a distance and masked up, was shown how her new computer worked. “This was my first hands-on, intense session with the school,” she says, and the support she felt was exactly what she needed. “You can’t just call Best Buy and expect them to know about JAWS or about vision. That’s the number one beauty of NDVS – you don’t have to go into a whole explanation [of your vision loss] because they already understand.”
Since then, “I have Dave on speed-dial,” Janelle says. In 2023, She initially signed up to attend a week-long program to learn more about technology, but to fill out her daily schedule, she figured she may as well learn some daily living skills, even though she’d cooked, cleaned, raised a son, and worked full-time for 45 years. “What I know I learned from my mother,” Janelle said, as well as some “odds and ends learned from others” over the years, including, of course, her sisters. “You just do it!” she explains, “You don’t think about it,” she says of the daily habits she’s had to learn and adapt during her lifetime.
In 2025, Janelle picked up tricks from Loris who also attended the adult week. Loris, a lifelong baker, learned some tips from Daily Living Skills instructor Ken Dockter, such as using an ice cream scoop to transfer batter into a pan, and to organize supplies on a tray so they are contained and less likely to spill. “Little things that make a big difference,” Janelle explains. One day during their class time, Ken suggested to Janelle that they make grilled cheese sandwiches, something she’d been doing for decades. While she was skeptical at first, she says, “the way he showed me was just so slick. To come back home and be able to make a really delicious grilled cheese sandwich – it was just so wonderful and unexpected.” It was also Ken who gently suggested to Janelle that at least learning the braille alphabet could be beneficial for labeling in the kitchen. Loris agreed to be her teacher.
Learning Orientation and Mobility (O&M) skills from Superintendent Paul Olson, who is trained as an O&M Specialist, was also unexpected but incredibly helpful. “One of the slickest things I learned was how to go downstairs using the cane,” she says, something she had never been formally taught before. Paul also came to Williston to work with Janelle and Loris at the gym they attend near their homes. During the 2025 week, they both were introduced to the Meta glasses by Margo Lentz, a life changing experience. “The whole format for the week – the schedule, breakfast and lunch together – it’s all created to be a learning experience,” she says.
One of her favorite moments came at the end of the week. On Friday morning, a Courage Ceremony is held, during which both staff and the adult clients can share highlights and insights from the week. Each adult receives a “certificate of courage,” acknowledging the courage it takes for an adult to take a week out of their life to spend it away from home, focusing on their goals and learning more about their vision loss and themselves. These ceremonies are often emotional, with both staff and clients tearing up while sharing what they learned and how they’ve changed by attending the weeklong program. “That ceremony,” Janelle says, “that was so cool.”
At different times throughout her life, as her vision loss has slowly progressed, Janelle has had to accept the loss over and over again, and it’s never gotten any easier. For anyone facing vision loss, Janelle says, “Whether people are newly blind or have had vision loss forever, I think the biggest log to jump over is denial,” she says. “Nobody wants to join the club.” But, she says, “someone is doing themselves a disservice when they are totally in that world of denial.” What she suggests is what she’s tried to do throughout her own life: connect with others who can relate. “We all need somebody,” she says. “We are interdependent on people even if we might think we are independent.”
Now, she’s grateful to be interdependent on NDVS/SB. “I think the folks at NDVS/SB have something to offer to help in whatever situation,” she says. “I feel so blessed to know that that support is there. It’s such a soft place to land.”