Joan Pierce Eulogy

Hello, and thank you for coming. Rodney, Wade, Linda and their families, appreciate you being here to share with them memories of Joan’s life.

One thing we can learn from Joan, is to value and appreciate the friendships that we have. She had close friends in many places in the United States as well as other countries in the world. She loved to travel and made friends in Australia and the Philippines. Joan was always at the center of planning pot-locks and gatherings, where she would make taco soup, gumbo and her famous Mississippi Mud Pie. Bringing people together for good food, laughter and fellowship were important to her.

Joan was very generous, thoughtful and big hearted. While living in Richmond, VA, she and Mary Lou organized a fund raiser to help a homeless ex-Navy Seal with serious health problems. This enabled him to purchase a bus ticket to join his family in Arizona where he eventually earned his degree. Today he is a drug rehabilitation counselor.

Though times were not always easy, Joan had a knack for being able to find humor in every day life. Joan was quick with a good joke or funny story. Playing mischievous pranks like meeting the “Fly family” or “Old Ms. Molly, she walks like this”. One of her favorite jokes was about two girls sitting in a stadium in Oklahoma looking at the moon. One said, “which one do you think is closer, the moon or Florida?” The other said, “Uh, hello? Can you see Florida from here?”

We’re often reminded to be child like. Joan connected with children and knew how to make them happy. She also taught us how to live in the present and enjoy the moment.

In closing, I would like to share one of Joan’s last emails to a friend which read like this: “I don’t have the strength I used to, but such is life. We had II Cor. 4 last night and I thought of verse 16: For which cause, we faint not. For tho our outward man may perish, the inward man is renewed day by day. I hope God will continue to work with me.”


Here is a poem that was shared in memory of Joan:

All that we loved in her, this shall remain
Smoothed from each wrinkle and cleansed from each stain
All of the earthliness now filed away
All of the Heavenly purged from the clay.
From the frail mold of this mortal set free,
All that we loved in her ever shall be.

All that we loved, only the best
She has but laid down her weapons to rest.
She has put off the armor of strife
Faithful to death, God has crowned her with life.
Purified, glorified, fit for the sky
All that we loved in her never can die.