Joyce M. Olander

We celebrate a warm, loving life that has come to an end. Joyce Olander died April 18, 2013. Joyce invested in her family, students, friends to enable their happiness and success.

Joyce was born on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1922, in Albion, Michigan. Her parents were Texas residents; however Joyce’s mother went home to her mother in Michigan for the birth. Joyce’s family heritage is Canadian and American and her extended family lived on both sides of the Canada/US border. Joyce’s parents had moved to Texas to start their married life and made Rockport, Texas their home base. Joyce’s father was a salesman and Joyce’s parents frequently moved around the state of Texas. While in Rockport, Joyce and her sister Beryl spent many afternoons swimming off the pier in Aransas Bay on the front of their property. During her high school years, the family lived in Houston, Texas, where Joyce attended San Jacinto High School. She graduated in May 1939 as Salutatorian.

During her childhood, Joyce and her family shared some unique experiences. Fearing their home on Aransas Bay might be blown over the bluff during a hurricane, they spent one hurricane in a tent under a thicket of live oak trees on the side of the property. Another hurricane caught them camping in a remote spot on the barrier island which they had sailed to in her father’s shrimp boat. To the relief of Joyce’s oldest sister who had stayed at home that trip, they managed to quickly sail back before the height of the storm.

One of Joyce’s favorite past times was reading. As a child, she often took her book into the branches of a live oak tree to read. Her love of reading led Joyce to decide to study Library Science in college. At a time when few women went to college, Joyce earned a bachelor’s degree in Education (not Library Science) from Texas State College for Women (TWU today). She changed majors after took a semester off to stay home in Rockport and teach first grade. She said she found her calling from that teaching experience.

Joyce had an adventurous spirit. During her college years in Denton, Joyce participated in a program that today would be called a “semester abroad.” The Spanish professor at Texas State College for Women spent summers in Mexico and invited and chaperoned some of her Spanish students to go to Saltillo, Mexico, to teach English to the children there. Joyce graduated from college in 1943 during World War II. She applied for a teaching position in Ozona, Texas, which is 370 miles from Rockport. In order for the principal to interview her, an agreement was made for her parents to drive Joyce half way to Ozona and the principal to drive halfway to Rockport. The principal even provided them with some gas rationing coupons to help pay for the gasoline. After teaching in Ozona for 2 years, Joyce returned to South Texas when she decided she was too far from home. She secured a third grade teaching position in Travis Elementary School in Corpus Christi, Texas.

In December, 1945, Joyce and her teacher friends decided to throw a scavenger hunt party at her parent’s house in Rockport in order to meet young men. That night she met Harvey Olander. It was not love at first sight. Harvey asked for another woman’s phone number. In January, Harvey and Joyce bumped into each other at New England Cafeteria in Corpus Christi and decided to sit together to talk. One month later, Harvey proposed to Joyce with a diamond ring. He had obtained a guarantee from the jeweler that he could return the ring if she declined. Since it had only been one month since they met, Joyce wasn’t certain she “could live with him for the rest of her life”. Harvey convinced her to keep the ring for a few days while he went to Brownsville on business and to wait to give him an answer when he got back. She put the ring in the back of her dresser drawer and didn’t tell any of her teacher friends. She did make the right decision to accept his proposal when he returned and they married on June 8, 1947, at Rockport Methodist Episcopal Church South (now United Methodist). They were married for 59 years and lived at the same address in Corpus Christi for 50 years. After getting married, Joyce continued teaching for 2 years in Corpus Christi before retiring to start their family.

She had three children, Janet, Ralph and Keith, who were born in 1948, in 1950 and 1953. In addition to child rearing, Joyce was a faithful member of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church for 56 years. Joyce participated in the activities of United Methodist Women, receiving a Service Pin. Joyce was the leader of her daughter’s Camp Fire Girls group for 4 years planning many overnight camping outings in Rockport including cooking on a campfire. In 1961, one of the “life skills” Joyce made sure to teach her girls was how to cut up a whole raw chicken and cook it. Once her Camp Fire Girls leader duties were over, Joyce was a Cub Scout leader for her son Keith. Joyce was active in the Parent Teacher Associations at Sam Houston Elementary and Baker Junior High. She was chairman of the parent committee that planned and chaperoned the end of year “Casino Party” for the ninth graders at Baker in 1964. Joyce was also an accomplished seamstress. She sewed her sister Beryl’s formal wedding dress, sewed and appliqued the wedding table cloth, and sewed the 3 bridesmaids’ dresses in 1949 when her daughter Janet was 7 months old. Joyce also sewed all of her daughter’s clothes. Once daughter Janet graduated from high school, Joyce returned to her teaching career as a Special Education teacher at Baker Junior High School. Joyce’s job involved much empathy and care for the difficult lives of her students. During the summers, she attended University of Texas at Austin and earned a Master’s Degree in Education. She taught at Baker Junior High for 17 years.

Joyce adopted her husband Harvey’s Swedish cultural heritage. Many days were spent in on the Gustafson-Olander farm near Hutto, a small central Texas farming community. The holidays were celebrated in the Swedish tradition. Joyce studied Swedish and corresponded with the relatives still in Sweden. Later in life, Joyce and Harvey maintained the farmhouse as a second home.

Harvey called Joyce “Mrs. Clean” because she kept the house dust free and mildew free, washing the walls once a year to help control Harvey’s allergies. Her family always teased her because she enjoyed washing clothes. She liked beautiful dishes. As vacation souvenirs, she collected a matched bone china cup, saucer and dessert plate set from the farthest destination point on each trip. Her 30 set collection was displayed in the dining room and regularly used. Harvey acquiesced to her dish buying saying it was better than collecting expensive jewelry.

Joyce and Harvey were very loving and caring people. They invested in their family and others to make those lives better. They volunteered and helped their 3 children even after they were grown, flying to New Jersey, North Carolina, or Georgia to help in the care of grandchildren. In their eighties, when their son Ralph was in chemotherapy, they moved to North Carolina for 2 years to help him. They shared their home with both of their mothers after their mothers could not lead an independent life.

Joyce was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Phyllis, her husband Harvey, her son Ralph, son-in-law Bill Barnard, and great-granddaughter Kathlyn Joy Davis.

She is survived by her daughter Janet Barnard, her son and his wife Keith and Erin Olander, her daughter-in-law Karen Olander; seven grandchildren: Tim Barnard and wife Linda, Brian Barnard and wife Jessica, Beth Davis and husband John, Jeffrey Olander, Austin Olander, Colin Olander, and Lily Olander; eight great-grandchildren: Reed, Christian, Sawyer, and Hannah Barnard; Sydney, Will, and Aaron Barnard; Glory Joy Davis; her sister Beryl Koenig, eight nieces and nephews, and their children and grandchildren.

The funeral service is at 2pm Saturday, April 27th, 2013 at the Pat Foley Funeral Home, 1200 W. 34th Street, Houston, Tx. The viewing will be held from 12 noon to 2pm in advance of ceremony.