Janice Jean DeBower Stovall was born on January 7, 1917 in Dane, Wisconsin. She received both a Bachelor of Science (1938) and a Master of Science (1949) from the University of Wisconsin with a major in speech pathology and audiology and a minor in health education. In 1939, she married William D. Stovall Jr., the son of the director of the State Laboratory of Hygiene and a member of a prominent medical family. Janice and William Stovall had two daughters: Tamara Jean and Victoria Ann.
After graduation, Janice Stovall worked for the State Department of Handicapped Children in Ashland, Wisconsin, where she taught in a school for the deaf and hearing impaired. She spent a brief period of time in Indiana and then returned to Madison in 1941 to work as a junior clerk in publicity for the State Board of Health. In 1946, Stovall worked for the American Red Cross in San Diego, California, but returned again to Madison in 1947; this time she worked as an health educator for the State Board of Health.
In 1956, Stovall joined HEAR Incorporated (Hearing Education And Rehabilitation) as executive director. HEAR was a private agency which provided services to the deaf and hard of hearing. HEAR had been established by Mrs. Ralph Immell in 1954 after a local survey established the needs of the local deaf and hard of hearing. With a grant from the federal government, Stovall developed an experimental 20-program television series to teach lip reading and life skills to the hearing impaired. In 1959, HEAR Inc. merged with the Speech and Rehabilitation Center at the University of Wisconsin and at this time Stovall returned to the State Board of Health as a health education specialist with the Division of Chronic Disease and Aging. She later headed this office which was reorganized first as the Patient Care Section and the as the Facilities Assistance Section. After her retirement, Stovall moved to Roseville, Minnesota, where she resided as Janice J. Stovall-Bannen.
