Schouten, Joanna "JoAnn" (Mrs. Melvin) 1924-2024

SCHOUTEN, VANDERMATEN, VERMEER

Posted By: Marjorie Brunsting-Volunteer (email)
Date: 3/6/2024 at 15:06:30

Mrs. Joanna “JoAnn” Schouten, age 99, of Orange City, formerly of Sioux Center, passed away on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, at the Prairie Ridge Care Center in Orange City.

A visitation with the family present will be held on Thursday, March 7, from 5:00pm to 7:00pm, at the Centerpoint Church in Sioux Center. There will be a funeral service on Friday, March 8, at 11:00am, at the church with the Rev. Stephen C. Breen officiating. Interment will follow the service at the Memory Gardens Cemetery in Sioux Center. The Oolman Funeral Home in Orange City is in charge of arrangements.

Joanna Gertrude, the daughter of Andrew and Gertrude (Ver Meer) Vander Maten, was born on June 30, 1924, on a farm near Boyden. She was baptized at the Free Grace Reformed Church in Middleburg on August 10, 1924, and completed grade school at the Capel No. 6, a country school adjoining their farm. She graduated from the Newkirk Consolidated School in Newkirk on May 20, 1942, and earned her teaching certificate from the Western Union College (later Westmar College) in Le Mars, during the summer of 1942. She taught at country schools south of Orange City and north of Boyden for four years.

She was united in marriage to Melvin Schouten on October 10, 1946, at the Free Grace Reformed Church in Middleburg. They made their first home east of Middleburg before moving to a farm near Montevideo, Minnesota in 1949. In 1955, they moved to Sioux Center, where they raised their six children and operated Schouten Plumbing and Heating. After retiring, they enjoyed traveling extensively in their motorhome throughout the United States and Canada, and took other trips together to Portugal, Aruba, Brazil, the Holy Land, Hawaii, and Europe. Mel passed away on August 24, 1988, after more than 41 years of marriage. JoAnn continued to make her home in Sioux Center and was able to travel to Australia, New Zealand, Holland, Japan, and Kazakhstan to visit her children. In 2017, she moved to the Pioneer Home in Orange City, and in October of 2018, she became a resident of the Prairie Ridge Care Center.

She was an active member of the First Reformed Church in Sioux Center, where she taught Sunday school and catechism, and participated in a women’s circle. A lifelong violinist, JoAnn received a superior rating for her violin solo, “Czardas”, by Vittorio Monti, at the 1941 National School Music Competition/Festival in St. Paul, Minnesota. She and her sisters, Alice Van Dyke and Adeline Dolphin, provided special music at countless churches throughout Sioux County and at the Gospel Mission in Sioux City, and for many years JoAnn was a member of the Sioux County Farm Bureau Women’s Choir and the Sioux County Orchestra. She was also an accomplished seamstress, took pleasure in growing houseplants, and enjoyed birdwatching. Her favorite outdoor activity was having wiener roasts with her family at Oak Grove State Park near Hawarden or at Sandy Hollow near Sioux Center. She was quick to say in English, “a body in motion stays in motion”, and “a day is what you make”; and in Dutch, “ouderdom komt met gebreken (old age comes with breaking down)”. She will be remembered as a wonderful mother to her six children who demonstrated a strong Christian faith.

She is survived by five children, Alan Schouten, and his wife, Shirley, of Sioux Center; Mark Schouten, and his wife, Carrie, of Des Moines; Dan Schouten, of Tokyo, Japan; Duane Schouten, and his wife, Louise, of Albany, Australia, and Beth, and her husband, Shaun Pageler, of Phoenix, Arizona; eight grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and two sisters, Edna Kiel and Adeline Dolphin both of Orange City.

In addition to her parents and husband, she was preceded in death by a daughter Lorinda “Lori” Schouten; two sisters and their husbands, Greta and Donald “Bud” Foreman, and Alice and Ray Van Dyke; a brother and his wife, Willis and Arnola Vander Maten; and three brothers-in-law, Raymond Kiel, David De Boer, and Audley Dolphin.

Memorials will be given to Frontiers, for their worldwide missions, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for their research on Alzheimer’s Disease.

Source: Oolman Funeral Home online obituary.