Joan Deere - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Joan Deere

My cousin Joan lives in Minster with her husband Bob and they have a large yard, so one spring Bob bought a new garden tractor. Here’s Joan's story about the purchase: "Bob told me this was my Mother's Day present to go along with the nice 4 HP Craftsman lawn edger he gave me for my birthday. Ha Ha. Isn’t he romantic? Bob said when we got it, he wanted me to put on a pair of shorts, high heels, and a nice wide brimmed white sun hat, sit on the tractor and he’d take a picture and send it to John Deere for advertisement for them! Bob teased me about having a Joan Deere tractor. About a year and a half later I was in the garage, glanced over at the tractor, and saw that it did indeed say Joan Deere. I went in the house and asked him when he did that. Did what? Paint Joan Deere on the tractor. About a year and a half ago. Bob had taken a Sharpie pen and curved a line over the H making it an A. So I’m not too observant, as it is against the wall right in front of where he parks his car.

Joan keeps all the members of the Hoying clan, my Mother’s family, up to date on birthdays, anniversaries and other such family matters. She’s great at communicating all kinds of interesting tidbits about family members as well as organizing numerous family events and sending out holiday greetings. For example, several times a year, the “girl cousins” get together for lunch and a photo of the group is always shared with everyone on her distribution. An example is shown above. Joan is standing on the far right.

Being of German descent and a life-long Minster native, Joan loves the annual Oktoberfest each fall, dressing in the native folk garb called a dirndl while she serves beer to the customers.

But no doubt Joan is most noteworthy for helping to keep the annual Hoying reunion tradition alive and well. She and Bob are pictured on the far left of this recent reunion photo below. The banner honoring our grandparents is proudly hung at every reunion. Preceding the reunion is always a 9 hole golf scramble at Arrowhead GC. In recognizing Joan for being the voice of the Hoying family, we always let her team win!

My very first blog written back in July of 2015 was about the Hoying reunion. And no surprise, Joan is sitting front and center in this 1948 reunion photo and God only knows where she is in this 1997 photo with the family home built in 1886 shown in the background.

It was a sad day just before Christmas in 2009 when Joan reported to the family that the old family farm house had caught fire and was totally destroyed. Fortunately no one was hurt and the home was rebuilt by the following Christmas.

Joan enjoys sharing the interesting puns on the Indian Hills, Colorado Community Center billboard. Some of her favorites are shown below.

Updates on cousin Scott Hoying, a singer in the a cappella group Pentatonix, are also provided regularly by Joan. Scott is the tall guy pictured below and is the grandson of my uncle Tony whom I’ve written about in past blogs.

My contributions to Joan’s regular messages are providing updates about another cousin Jared Hoying’s highlights over the course of his professional baseball career. Hope my job is not over just yet, now that the MLB strike is settled and if Jared hopefully gets picked up by a team!

Thanks, Joan for keeping everybody in the loop about family matters. It’s always interesting and much appreciated.

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