LORENZEN, Joy Adeline (Nelson) 1924-2013
LORENZEN, NELSON, ZANVILLE, DUNN
Posted By: S. Bell
Date: 3/17/2013 at 22:29:12
[Waterloo Courier, Sunday, February 24, 2013]
Joy Adeline Nelson Lorenzen, 88, a resident of Waterloo for almost 70 years, died Tuesday, Feb. 19, in San Diego of natural causes.
Joy was born in an April snowstorm in Mobridge, South Dakota, to Gustave and Nell (Dunn) Nelson. As an only child during the Great Depression, home shifted from welcoming families to rental apartments wherever her father could sell beauty products or vacuum cleaners.
The strain became evident when her parents divorced.
Warmth and laughter was the springboard to making new school friends. Though she attended many schools from Illinois to North Dakota, she still managed to graduate with her class in Mobridge, South Dakota. Joy enrolled at Mount Mercy College in South Dakota but her studies were disrupted by circumstances surrounding World War II.
Joy found employment at John Deere and Company and a fun set of friends who liked to sing and dance. The Electric Park Ballroom was the magnet for meeting the opposite sex but the prerequisite was the ability to be able to dance. In stepped Myron “Mike” Lorenzen who started and ended the dance with her. It lasted 62 years.
Joy was on the Board of Directors of the YWCA of Black Hawk County, a supporter of United Way, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, Black Hawk County Republican Party, and a member of PEO Chapter Z and Westminster Presbyterian Church.
Rising to the challenge of being named “Joy”, her legacy is the “joy” she gave to everyone who knew her.
She is survived by her only child, Janet Elaine Zanville (Harry Zanville) San Diego, CA, grandson, Robert Zanville, San Diego, CA, granddaughter Leah Zanville (Adam Doerr), two great grandchildren, Henry and Elliott Doerr, Charlotte, NC, and her daughter of the heart, Janet Wilson Mokosac, Waterloo, IA.Services will be held at Memorial Park Cemetery Chapel Waterloo, at 11:00 a.m. Friday, March 1, 2013. Memorial donations should be directed to the YWCA of Black Hawk County or Westminster Presbyterian Church.
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US Birth Records: JOY A. LORENZEN 1924-04-16 Coronado CA
Black Hawk Obituaries maintained by Karen De Groote.
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