Jan Castle

Jeanette "Jan" Clara Travis, born in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, on January 25, 1930, was a jazz pianist and singer who had her first professional engagements with The Bud Wilber Orchestra based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the early 1950s, she married Vern Castle, who had also been a member of the Wilber Orchestra, and the two toured for a decade as a duo, performing at hotels and supper clubs from Las Vegas to Miami, and Canada to the Bahamas. Returning to the Lake Geneva area in the early 1960s, they took up musical residence at The Abbey on Lake Geneva. The Castles also began operating a successful recording studio on the south shore of the lake, attracting recording artists from Chicago, Milwaukee, and Rockford. Much of their success related to composing and recording radio and television advertising jingles for regional and national ad campaigns. Among the duo's most memorable jingles were ones composed for Doublemint Gum (used with The Doublemint Twins, featuring Jan on vocals), American Family Insurance (the nine-note theme which is still in use), and Menard's ("Save big money at Menard's"). After retiring from the music business, Jan married Robert J. Reed in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. She began a second career as a painter. Jan Castle-Reed passed away May 16, 2016, at Aurora Lakeland Medical Center in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, after several years of dementia and declining health.