POTGETER, Joyce 1935-1991

POTGETER, HIPPEN

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 2/24/2019 at 17:38:14

Rites Held For Joyce Potgeter

Joyce LaVarre Potgeter, 55, of Steamboat Rock, passed away Wednesday, February 13, at her home of natural causes.

Services were held at 1:30 p.m., Saturday, February 16, at the First Presbyterian Church in Steamboat Rock. Burial was in the Steamboat Rock Cemetery.

Joyce was born in Wellsburg on July 11, 1935, to Herman and Harriette Hippen in Wellsburg. She attended Wellsburg Community School while growing up, she was active in extracurricular programs, including basketball, and band. In 1953, the year of graduation, she was elected Queen runner-up at the Mason City Band Festival. She then attended Ellsworth Junior College, in Iowa Falls majoring in elementary education, and acting in school plays. After graduating from Ellsworth, she taught kindergarten in the Geneva Community Schools, for six years.

On December 26, 1958, she was united in marriage to James Potgeter, in the Presbyterian Church in Conrad. She moved with her husband to Steamboat Rock, and commuted to Geneva for the balance of that school year. The couple took a four month honeymoon tour of Europe, and Joyce temporarily stopped teaching.

The next ten years she spent much of her time in Republican politics. She worked and held an office in the Young Republican Women's Organization. She was active in the 1964, and 1968 Presidential campaigns, her husband's 1966, and 1970 Senate campaigns, and in the 1968 Gubernatorial campaign, receiving a letter of thanks and commendation from President Nixon in 1969.

During this time she continued to be active in young people's lives. For years she was the story hour reader for the library; she also worked with Webelo Scouts. She received her bachelor of Education Degree from Drake University in Des Moines in 1968, and started a 22 year teaching career in the Eldora-New Providence schools. She not only taught kindergarten, but developed an experimental transitional kindergarten, and more recently taught remedial reading to second graders.

Joyce is survived by her parents, Herman and Harriette Hippen, of Wellsburg; her husband, James, of Steamboat Rock; a daughter, Jami Maja, at home; two sisters, Annabelle Penning, of Wellsburg, and Beverly VanHauen, of Cedar Falls; two brothers, Herman Hippen, Jr., of Wellsburg, and Frank Hippen, of Marshalltown.

Memorials may be directed to either the Eldora-New Providence, or Wellsburg-Steamboat Rock Schools' Dollars for Scholars funds.

Doyen-Abels Funeral Home in Wellsburg was in charge of arrangements.

--The Grundy Register (Grundy Center, Iowa), 21 February 1991, pg 12