Joanne Nef

Joanne Pixton Nef was born on the 22nd of May 1935 to Emma Schmidt Pixton and Robert LeRoy Pixton in Fillmore, Utah. Joanne passed peacefully at home in Sanger, California on the 10th of November 2025.

Joanne was the 10th of 12 children and had 3 brothers and 9 sisters. The family later moved to Draper, Utah. Although her father was a school teacher, he also raised mink for the fur, cows for milk and meat, and chickens for the eggs and meat. Joanne learned how to sew, cook, and didn’t particularly like collecting eggs and was afraid to walk through the chicken coops at night but did it anyway. She had plenty of siblings to play with and was raised under a strict father. She loved to go to the movie theatre in Draper on the weekends when she could and loved music and dancing.

She graduated from Jordan High School in 1953 and went to Utah State University where she met her future husband Clyde Edwin Nef. They were married in the Idaho Falls LDS Temple on June 9th, 1955. During the next six years they lived in Logan Utah, Salt Lake Utah and Idaho Falls Idaho. In 1961, Clyde & Joanne with their three oldest children, Kristine, Allan, & Bart, moved to Fresno, California where they stayed and had their 4th and last child, Tonya. Their son Bart learned later from his mom that “she knew she had a child when I had Bart”. Bart is still trying to interpret the meaning of that statement.

Joanne worked for the Fresno Unified School district once her kids were older. She became a “mom” to any young person that fell within her sphere of influence, and her first assignment was working at Edison High School as the Office Manager. Kids that came into the office where she worked with torn clothing were treated to her sewing it up. This particular high school was there for kids trying to get through school and out of the system faster and some came from troubled families. On one instance she talked a young man who came to school with a handgun out of using it and working with the two policemen who were assigned to this school. At that time, it was NOT normal to have policemen assigned to a school. Later she was transferred to Tenaya Middle School as the Office Manager where she stayed until retirement. She couldn’t stay retired and subbed in several schools as a troubleshooter to help them get their finances figured out. Joanne was meticulous with her records and took care of all the home finances. In her 70’s, she went to work for the IRS during the high-volume tax season.

Joanne was active in her church and loved to work with the young women. At this time in the LDS church the young people in each Ward (local congregation) made up skits or plays and moved around to different Wards to show them. These were called “Road Shows” and Joanne loved to direct them and be in them. Later Joanne and others put on a large dance festival using young people from all the surrounding LDS Wards in Fresno, Hanford, Modesto and surrounding areas. The dance festival had to be held in a football stadium because of its size and everyone, LDS or not, was invited to come watch. Joanne was involved with everything from sewing costumes, music, and choreography. After Clyde and Joanne had retired from their respective jobs, they volunteered to serve an LDS mission in Chicago, Illinois from September 2003 through March 2005. Joanne worked in the missionary office and Clyde took care of the missionary fleet of cars and keeping an eye on where the local missionaries were living and anything that they might need. Clyde and Joanne became a mom and dad to several young LDS missionaries and kept in contact with them after they left. They would travel to visit them for special events in their lives and had them drop by on visits to them.

Joanne loved to cook and sew. She would can anything that didn’t move in the summers when peaches, cucumbers (for pickles), strawberries, and made a very special punch for parties using the juice from pomegranates. Her children learned the joys of getting the skins off of recently scalded peaches that were nearly too hot to handle, and watching their skin get dyed red from getting the blasted pomegranate seeds out of the pomegranates. On one very special occasion during pickle canning she ran out of dill weed and sent her son, Bart, off to the store to get more dill even though he only had a learner’s permit by himself. Bart loved it.

Joanne loved to entertain and Clyde had his office parties in their home. Later they would also have wedding receptions in their backyard. Joanne was always coming up with unique things to cook and honing her talents. She went through several trials of making the perfect lemon meringue pie before perfecting it. The unfortunate trials that didn’t work were eagerly consumed by her children. She was raised in an era of not throwing anything out including food. On one instance a wonderful cherry cream pie that was supposed to be fed to Clyde’s office party guests got dribbled on by the shrimp marinate in the rack above it in the fridge. The kids got to eat this one as well. It was NOT eagerly received.

In their later years Joanne and Clyde traveled to places around the United States and the world with her brother Robert and his wife Eunice which they all thoroughly enjoyed. Traveling had always been a dream of hers.

Both Joanne and Clyde were involved with their grandchildren, great grandchildren, as well as nephews and nieces and made a point of traveling to visit them during any special occasions in their lives. One grandchild, Alyssa Nef (daughter of Bart & Cherie Nef), stayed with them while attending college in the area to get her Physician’s Assistant degree and thinks of both of them as her adopted mom and dad.

She is survived by her 4 children: Kristine (Randy) Robbins, Allan (Adel) Nef, Bart Nef, Tonya (Victor) McGill. Her stepsister Sylvia Arterburn. Clyde and Joanne have 13 grandchildren, 18 great grandchildren, and 4 great great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents, all her siblings, and 3 step-siblings. Joanne was very close with many of her Pixton nephews and nieces. They love and will miss her.

A graveside service will be held on Friday, December 5th, 2025, at the Clovis Cemetery (305 N. Villa Avenue, Clovis, California) at 11:00 a.m. The family would like to thank Ashleigh, Michelle and Heritage Hospice for taking such tender and respectful care of Mom for the last 15 months.

Boice Funeral Home in Clovis, California are handling the arrangements.

Joanne taught her kids how to sew, can, cook, clean, do their chores, and be good people. She left a legacy of what one committed woman could do and did it with a smile. She could be strict and had a way of getting under your skin if what you were doing wasn’t up to par. We will miss you, Mom!