Jo Ann’s Story
Jo Ann herself wrote us a story to highlight some significant events in her life. Jo Ann explains: The reason I did so, is that since 1981 when I accepted a job transfer to Melbourne, Florida, I have lived away from my family, not seeing them very often, so my nieces and nephews and especially the great nieces and nephews did not really know me and there are some things I want for them to know.
Funeral Eulogy of Jo Ann Marie Morarend Young
January 4, 2014
Jo Ann was born on December 20, 1947 in the small northeastern Iowa town of Guttenberg to her parents Phyllis and Earl Morarend. She was raised on a small dairy farm seven miles west of Guttenberg. She was the second of six children.
Jo Ann was baptized at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church in Garnavillo, Iowa by Pastor Alexander Meyer. Jo Ann was confirmed into adult membership of the same congregation on Palm Sunday of 1962 by Pastor L.C. Urlaub.
Growing up on a farm in the 50’s and 60’s meant being on the farm most days especially during summer break from school. As kids we made our own fun each day. As we got older, we were given more responsibilities. Dad raised hogs, cows and chickens so there were animals to feed, cows to milk twice a day, barns to clean, fences to fix with tons of nails, hay to be made in the summer and corn to pick in the fall. There was never time for a big family vacation. But it was great training for learning what it would be like one day to have a full time job. We learned to get our work done and done right. So we learned quickly to do it right the first time.
Christmas was always fun. Santa would appear in a window before Christmas. Generally the first time was on St. Nicolas night which is early in December. On St. Nicolas night Santa would leave a bag filled with lots of nuts, fruit and candy on the porch. Then as we got closer to Christmas, Santa would appear again especially if we were being naughty and sometimes just because it was Christmas and Santa “is always watching”. But Santa would also appear in the middle of July especially if we were to be taking a Sunday afternoon nap. Once Santa appeared it didn’t take long for us kids to settle down and go to sleep.
Nearly all the roads around the area were gravel. When there was a big snow storm with wind, nearly all the roads drifted shut. This happened many times when we were in school. Many places where it was low would have huge drifts to go through. Some winters produced a lot of snow and some of the roads would be closed for a couple of days before the county got there to open them. During those storms there would be no school. Once the roads were opened Dad would take us to see how high the drifts were. We would climb up on the snow bank and the car looked pretty small below us. Mom would bring along her camera and take pictures.
Jo Ann attended the Guttenberg Consolidated School and graduated in 1966 in a class of 50 students. That following fall, when the summer haymaking and combining of the oats were over, Jo Ann went to Cedar Rapids to find a job. She tried several places but none were hiring. Her last stop of the day was at Collins Radio Company. They made instruments for airplanes and employed a large number of people. They were hiring, so Jo Ann filled out an application. In a few days she was told that she was hired and was to report for work on September 16, 1966 as an assembly operator. Jo Ann started on the night shift for $2.00 an hour.
Jo Ann’s years of employment with Collins Radio and later Rockwell Collins provided her with a life time career with many opportunities for advancement. Working overtime shortly after starting her job and saving money soon allowed her to get a car, making it much easier to get back and forth to work and to work as long as she wanted without having to depend on someone else for a ride.
Jo Ann always attributed her active role in the church and parish education to her good experiences in Confirmation class, Sunday School and Vacation Bible School as a teenager. Once Jo Ann began working, she took what vacation time she had and helped to teach Vacation Bible School back home. At that time churches held their program Monday through Friday from 9 am to 3 pm each day for one week. So it worked out well and was a great learning experience as she prepared the lesson for each day.
In the middle of November 1980, Jo Ann was contacted about a procedure writer’s position in Collins’ Melbourne, Florida facility. Jo Ann decided that with layoffs threatening her job, she might as well give it a shot. She interviewed and was hired. After a lot of fast work getting packed up, saying goodbye to family and friends, Jo Ann reported to work at Collins in Melbourne, Florida on January 12th 1981.
Jo Ann didn’t know anyone in Melbourne except for a handful at Collins so finding a church was going to be important. Her Pastor in Iowa had told her about St Timothy Lutheran Church. It turned out that during her time of interviewing and then finding a place to live, the ideal apartment was right across the street from St. Timothy. God’s hand was at work.
Jo Ann worshiped there each week and in early 1983 Jo Ann transferred her church membership from St Paul Lutheran in Garnavillo, Iowa. Jo Ann was received into membership at St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Melbourne, Florida in May 1983.
Jo Ann was an active member at St. Timothy. She was elected to several three year terms on the church council where she served a term as secretary and one year as president. She served as Sunday School Superintendent, one year as VBS Superintendent, Altar Guild Chairman for many years as well as serving on many of the other ministry committees of the congregation.
Her life as a single person over the years in Melbourne included a lot of work and many hours of overtime, which was not all bad. It allowed her to live on her own. In the summer of 1984 Ridgewood Club condominiums were being built and she purchased Unit 22. It was a second floor two bedroom unit and was a great place to call home.
The Lutheran Church Women were an active group at St. Timothy from the time the church was founded. As the new ELCA church body came into being in 1987, the women became a part of the new organization and became known as Women of the ELCA. It wasn’t long after the new organization began that JoAnn found herself being asked to serve as president of the St. Timothy unit. Jo Ann was elected and held the presidency position several times over the years as well as serving as treasurer for five years.
As the Conferences in the Florida Synod Women of the ELCA were forming, Jo Ann was elected Director of Presider (or president) for the Space Coast Conference. Over the years, Jo Ann served on the Space Coast Conference Board as the elected President for five two year terms and the position of secretary for one two year term.
Rick and Jo Ann were married on Friday, July 23, 1993 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church by Pastor Handlee Vige. It seemed that for days before the wedding whenever JoAnn talked about the upcoming wedding the tears would come. At the wedding service Pastor Vige started his sermon by announcing to everyone “Jo Ann, now that your wedding day is here you can stop crying.” As some of you probably noticed over the years, Jo Ann did not take his advice. There were many times over the years when her heart would over flow and the tears would come.
In the fall of 1993 Jo Ann received a phone call one evening from a gal on the Board of the Florida/Bahamas Synodical Women’s organization. She wondered if Jo Ann might be interested in finishing a term on the Synodical Board for a lady who had recently died. After talking it over with Rick, Jo Ann decided to do so. At the next two conventions she was elected to (2) two year terms of her own, 1994 through 1998.
Jo Ann was elected along with several others from Florida to attend the Fourth Triennial Women of the ELCA Convention in St. Louis in 1999. Several times over the years she served as St. Timothy’s delegate to the Florida/Bahamas Synodical Assemblies. In August of 2011 JoAnn represented southeast Florida as a delegate to the ELCA convention held in Orlando. Jo Ann found all of these events to be wonderful in learning about just how the church functions and they were great faith building experiences.
Within a year after their marriage, Rick became a member of St. Timothy and soon was as active as Jo Ann. At one point, a couple of people commented to Jo Ann on how they had thought that once she was married they probably would not see much of her again. That did not turn out to be the case. Jo Ann and Rick both loved the St Timothy congregation and remained very active members until their move to New Mexico.
The first Christmas after Rick and Jo Ann were married, they lived in the house Rick owned in Palm Bay. The next spring they spent several months looking around Palm Bay and Melbourne for property in which to build a new house. Finally they found a one acre piece of property on Postridge Trail in Melbourne. It was a great location. Not that far from work or church and yet close to a grocery store and other shops. The King Center for the Performing Arts where Jo Ann volunteered for five years was just down the street.
They located a builder and construction got underway. By November 1994 the house was finished, the closing was completed and they moved in. Their Postridge house was beautiful and made a great place for family Christmas and Thanksgiving gatherings.
By the summer of 2002 Jo Ann had enough years in at Collins that she could retire. After looking over their finances, she gave her notice. Jo Ann’s last day was January 16, 2003 after 36 years and 3 months of working for Rockwell Collins.
Now that Jo Ann was retired she realized she needed to do something with all the time she now had. Someone asked if she would be interested in helping a gal who had just gotten out of the hospital. She wanted Jo Ann to clean out her flower gardens and a couple of other things. From that, Jo Ann noticed other elderly people were having the same problem. After that first yard, word spread. Ladies told their friends. Jo Ann soon had five or six ladies she was working for. They would call her when they wanted their gardens done and bushes trimmed. Jo Ann was not out to make a living off them, but to help them out. They paid her what they felt it was worth to them and what they could afford. Three of the ladies always had her in for lunch to take a break and visit, which they both enjoyed. All were so very nice and greatly appreciated the work Jo Ann was doing for them and they became great friends. All the money they gave Jo Ann for doing their yard and flower garden work went to St. Timothy’s India Ministry program. Jo Ann felt good about donating the money and they felt good about supporting the India work in this way as well.
In February of 2005, Jo Ann was named Volunteer of the Year by the Eau Gallie Women’s Club of which she belonged. At the St. Patrick’s Day parade that year Jo Ann had to ride on the Eau Gallie Women’s Club float and throw out candy. The ladies taught Jo Ann how to wave like the Queen of England.
Rick had played tennis at night for many years and he was a good tennis player. While they were dating he taught Jo Ann how to play. Rick knew Mark Harrison, a local tennis pro, and they started taking lessons from him. Jo Ann’s skills improved and soon she and Rick enjoyed playing doubles with friends.
In all of Jo Ann’s working years she didn’t do much traveling. Then at St. Timothy’s Annual Congregational Meeting in 2002, the Pastor challenged the congregation to raise money so that as many members as wanted could make a trip to Kakinada, India the next year to visit Hope Village and the Christian Cancer Center. Rick and Jo Ann joined the group of 16 as they made the trip during the 2003 Christmas holiday.
They so much enjoyed the trip that in late June of 2005, Rick and Jo Ann made a second trip to India. This was a one month visit to the Kakinada area spending their time at Hope Village and the Christian Cancer Center. It was a trip both thoroughly enjoyed and a ministry they found to be very worthy.
In early 2009, Rick began talking about retiring. Since we had no children we began to think about who would care for us in our old age. So we made an appointment with the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans office in Melbourne to discuss long term care policies. Rick also told the advisor about wanting to do astronomy in New Mexico. By early fall of 2009 our advisor had finished setting them up with a long range investment plan and he told Rick he could retire the next day if he wanted to. So on January 15, 2010 Rick officially retired from Rockwell Collins after 29 years.
After several trips to New Mexico, they decided to buy property near Mayhill. By November their new house was completed and they started moving in. Their beautiful Postridge house went on the market and sold within six weeks. By then Rick and JoAnn were pretty well settled in their New Mexico home.
Rick and JoAnn became Associate Members at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Alamogordo on April of 2012 and were received into full membership at Our Savior in March 2013. Jo Ann was a member of Our Savior for a short time, but during that time she served several times as an assisting minister on Sunday morning and she was part of the congregation’s Call Committee as they searched for a new pastor in the fall of 2013.
On May 21st 2012, things quickly changed. Jo Ann was diagnosed with Stage IIIc ovarian cancer. After surgery Jo Ann began a series of chemo treatments that finished on December 11th. Things were looking good until September 2013 when tests showed the cancer had returned and was more widespread. Although a different chemo was started, it proved to be ineffective. At that point we opted to stop treatments and enjoy however many days she may have left.
Jo Ann concludes by saying…
As I put this together, my life is slowly coming to an end. I pray for the day when I stand at Heaven’s door and my Lord and Savior will say to me “well done good and faithful servant” as he welcomes me into his presence.
Remember me always in your heart. God’s Peace be with you now and forever.
Love, Jo Ann