Wanda Jean Hoover

She attended Westerville High School and Bliss Business College in Columbus, Ohio. She began working in Columbus, Ohio with the Ohio Inspection Bureau, and later worked for the Travelers Insurance Company and Ween Engineering. She and her husband Herb moved to Greensburg, Ohio, where Herb had been assigned to serve a church and she had her first child, Heather, in 1961. In 1965 her daughter Constance was born, and her son, Franklin was born three years later. The family moved to serve a church in Westfield Center, Ohio, in 1968.

In 1976 she and Herb decided to move the family from Ohio to Phoenix, Arizona, where the warm, dry, climate would be better for her severe arthritis. Herb started a career in the life and health insurance business and Wanda also returned to full-time work as the secretary for the manager of the Westfield Insurance Companies. After ten years with Westfield, she became Herb’s secretary for the remainder of her working career (which lasted until December 21, 2024, she would say).

She met her husband Herb at church when she was 11 years old, and he was 13 years old. They didn’t start dating until their early 20’s, and she would tell people later, “he finally woke up and realized what he had been missing.” They were married on April 26, 1952, while Herb was home on leave from the Army before shipping out to Korea to serve as a combat medic during that war. They celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary on April 26, 2024.

Wanda was happiest when she was with her children and grandchildren and when she was in the kitchen baking. She loved taking her daughters and granddaughters shopping, and some of her happiest moments were seeing her children graduating from college. She would always say how lucky she was to have Herb as her husband and to have such wonderful children and grandchildren. “What more could you want?”

Wanda leaves behind her husband, Herbert, her daughters Heather Katz (Richard), Tucson, AZ, and Constance Paris, Rio Rico, AZ, and son Franklin Hoover, Peoria, AZ; six grandchildren, Aaron Deaver (Stacie), Alyssa Deaver, Bryce Deaver (Rosa), Emily Katz, Emma Kunz (Zach), Ethan Hoover and a step granddaughter, Lily Levitan; a great granddaughter Cerys Deaver and three great grandsons, Daylin, Indra and Silas Kholar, and a niece, Laurel Williams (David). She was a member of the Central United Methodist Church.

Services will be held at Phoenix Memorial Park on Monday January 6, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. with visitation beginning at 10:00 a.m.