A matriarch aunt is now missing from our Heskett family. Aunt Joan died recently and has left a void in the hearts of her family. Even though she lived a ways away from the rest of her siblings, nieces and nephews, she made an effort to drive herself to about every family event that was scheduled including weddings, graduations, holiday get-togethers, birthday and anniversary celebrations and baby or wedding showers. She loved her parents and would often visit them. Whenever a sibling came back home to visit, she was there to visit also.
Her laughter was contagious. She never shied away from challenges. She was a planner, a lover of a written letter and her handwriting was beautiful. Her house was her domain. She worked to keep it spic n span. Aunt Joan loved her two sons, their spouses and her grandchildren. She would proudly share their latest achievements and happenings. She enjoyed cooking lunch for her two sons. The menu included a homemade pie. When her husband, Jerry, would come to the family farm, she usually came along with him to cook meals, run errands and use the extra time to visit family members.
Her interests besides family were horses, glassware, antiques, dancing, making wild plum jelly, clothes shopping, her flowers, and having people come to visit her. She loved her hometown of Burr Oak. She enjoyed keeping in touch with her friends there and her classmates. She hardly ever missed attending the school’s alumni banquet.
Two of her unique interests were family history research and taking short trips in her yellow Chevrolet Camaro and in her Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Special care was given to those two cars. Her interest in genealogy would take her to visit family gravesites and courthouses for research. Through this genealogy interest, she made acquaintances with extended family members in many states. Of course, she would keep in touch with them all through the years, exchanging information. In fact, that is how I inherited the genealogy bug. She was so excited when I told her I needed her help in completing two books on both sides of my mother and her parents, my grandparent’s family. She gladly welcomed me to come. We drug out papers and photos and devoted hours to them together.
Aunt Joan shared with me information on her memories of growing up on rented farms east of Burr Oak. One of her childhood chores was to milk the cows. She remembered in the summer getting slapped in the face with sharp stickers that were imbedded in the cow’s tail. She would gather eggs every day. She remembered a horse named Rex that would transport her, and her sisters Norma and Ruth to the Gregory country school, three miles there and three miles home. Riding bareback, she felt sorry for the child riding in the middle and getting squeezed from both sides. These were hard times, during the late 30s early 40s. There were seven children in the Heskett family at that time. Two more children were later added to the family. Aunt Joan said the family always had food on the table and with grandma sewing, there were always clothes to wear that could be passed on to the next child.
The family later moved into Burr Oak. Then onto a farm north of town. There the teenage Heskett girls had lots of boys call on them. Aunt Joan was one of those who had a good looking fellow come around named Jerry. As a teen she would work at the local grocery store and later moved to Stockton where she worked in the courthouse. When my parents, my sister and I moved to Stockton, I became close to my Aunt Joan. I enjoyed going with her to her office for the day. She gave me a special chair right beside hers and would assign me a job to do. I stayed nights with her at her apartment where she would live while her husband Jerry was serving his country overseas. She would let me play dress up in her clothes,we’d dance together and she would let me help her cook supper.
When Jerry returned to the states, they moved to Wichita and then to Great Bend where a family business was developed that exists today, taken over by their sons. Aunt Joan still kept in touch with her family and extended family. When she could, she’d jump into one of her favorite vehicles and make the trip northward to visit. She enjoyed taking in a auction, garage sale, or road trip to hunt for a favorite “finds,” along with her sister. After a long day of hunting, she would meet up with other family members for a supper at a café.
All of your family will miss you, Aunt Joan, and all you gave and shared with us of yourself. We will try our best to pass it on.
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