Joy Boren, 19 Mar 1925 – 23 Jun 2012

BOREN, SKERSIES, MULLER, BOHSTEDT, BLOME, FRAZER, FETZER, SALZBRENNER, BOLGER

Posted By: Sandy Ficken (email)
Date: 7/19/2012 at 21:43:18

Funeral services for Joy Boren, 87, Des Moines, were held at 2 p.m. Thursday, June 28, at Grace Community Church, Pleasant Hill. She died Saturday, June 23, 2012, at her home.

Burial was in Pleasant Hill Cemetery.

Joy Boren was born March 19, 1925, the daughter of John Henry and Freda Skersies Muller at the home of her uncle and aunt, Karl and Martha Bohstedt. Their farm was a little north of her parents’ farm, which was southeast of Victor.

Her Muller grandparents immigrated to the Victor area from Fischerhude, Hanover, to be near his sister, Katherine Muller Blome. Her Skersies grandparents immigrated to the Dallas, Oregon, area from Tsargillen, Lithuania Minor.

Joy and her younger sister Shirley grew up on the family farm. Besides neighboring children, there were Muller, Blome and Bohstedt cousins for companionship. Also, they each had a pet lamb, provided by their loving father.

For her elementary and middle school education, she attended Hartford Number Three, a one-room school house a one-third mile walk from their house. A simple building, it had no electricity or plumbing. Students had to pass a written exam to enter high school and she passed at the 90 percent level. She then attended Victor High School and graduated in 1943. During the winter months, she stayed with her Muller relatives in Victor as the dirt roads in the country were often too muddy or blocked by snow to make the three-mile trip to town.

Right across the road from Hartford Number Three was the old Victor Baptist country church, which her family attended faithfully. The church was situated on the northeast corner of her Muller grandparents’ farm.

Her first job was at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. After that, her next big job was at Bell Telephone, Des Moines. While living in Des Moines, she met her future husband, Bob. They had their first date in 1948 and were married in 1950.

Their family grew in 1952 with the birth of their first son, Brent. That same year, they moved to her parents’ Victor farm to live with her widowed mother.

In 1955, son Bert was born, followed by John in 1956. By the late 1950s, the 120-acre farm could no longer support a family so they relocated to the Des Moines area. In the early 1960s, in addition to being a wife and mother, she won several awards at the state fair for her dressmaking and cake decorating skills.

Joy returned to the workforce in the mid 1960s, being employed at several businesses. In 1969, she began working at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Des Moines, retiring in 1987. In her retirement years, she enjoyed traveling with her husband, collecting, working at the state fair, jigsaw puzzles and her growing family.

Boren is survived by her husband of 62 years, Bob; sons, Brent, Bert and Heidi and John and Diane, all of the Des Moines area; five grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; four great-great-grandchildren; her beloved sister, Shirley Frazer, Bellingham, Wash., and several cousins, including Maxine Fetzer, Victor; Doris Salzbrenner, Brooklyn, and lifelong friend Evelyn Bolger, Marengo.

The Williamsburg Journal Tribune, 12 Jul 2012, pg 11