She was raised in Milford and spent summers with her grandparents in East Sumner, Maine.

She graduated from Jonathan Law High School in 1965 and earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Connecticut in 1969.

PARS established the Jan Merrill-Oldham Professional Development Grant in her honor in 2011.

The award "supports professional development and involvement by librarians and paraprofessionals new to the preservation field.

[2] Peter Oldham served as sales and marketing director at Acme Bookbinding for over eighteen years.