Haines, Baker County, Oregon
Joann Boyer, 96, died at her Rock Creek home on April 3, 2005.
Her funeral will be at 2 p.m. Monday at Gray’s West & Co. Pioneer Chapel, 1500 Dewey Ave. Pastor Sally Wiens of the Haines United Methodist Church will officiate. Interment will be at the Haines Cemetery. There will be a reception afterward for family and friends at the United Methodist Church in Haines.
Visitations will be from 10 a.m. to noon Monday at Gray’s West & Co.
Joann V. Bond Boyer was born on Aug. 29, 1908, to Charles Wesley and Martha Herndon Bond at Missouri Flat. The family arrived there by rail from Kentucky in March of that year. She grew up there and on a farm near Hot Lake, attending high school at La Grande.
Joann had a 28-year teaching career, gaining credentials from Monmouth and Eastern Oregon normal schools, completing a bachelor of arts degree in English at the University of Oregon at Eugene in 1937, and earning a master’s degree in education from Eastern Oregon College in 1962.
Over the years, she taught at Imbler, Vale, South Fork School near Unity, Haines, Muddy Creek, and, for the greatest number of years, in the English classrooms of Baker junior and senior high schools. With a flair for the dramatic, she worked to make her classes as lively as they were informative.
In May 1935, Joann married Kenneth Boyer. After time in Eugene and on his family’s ranch at Hereford, they moved to Muddy Creek in 1942.
She spent the rest of her life in the Muddy Creek and Rock Creek communities where, in addition to teaching and rearing three children, she was active in the Mutual Improvement Club, the Farm Bureau, education organizations, including the Baker County Retired Educators, and the United Methodist Church.
Among her family’s talents was music. Joann taught herself to play the piano and violin. When young, she and her two younger brothers, Champ and Turner, formed a fiddle, guitar, and banjo trio and played for local dances. Later, when teaching high school, she would calm restless students by threatening to play an old-fashioned fiddle tune for them.
Survivors include two sons, Dale, and his wife, Grace, of Boise, and Duane of Haines; seven grandchildren and their spouses, Gina-Kamas Boyer Choi of Haydenville, Mass., Julie and Joe Glasgow, of Vancouver, Wash., Ken and Marie Boyer of Huntington Beach, Calif., Todd and Tabatha Farrington and Kelly and Genevieve Farrington of Puyallup, Wash., Holly Boyer of Haines and Jason Brandt of Hood River; and four great-grandchildren, all sources of pride to her; and many beloved nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Kenneth, in the 64th year of their marriage; her much-missed daughter, Dianne; her parents; and her six siblings, Lester, Elizabeth Badsky, Princess Ledridge, Charles Wesley Jr., Champ, and Turner.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Haines United Methodist Church Building Fund or the American Cancer Society.
Used with permission from: Baker City Herald, Baker City, Oregon, April 8, 2005
Transcribed by: Belva Ticknor