Joan B. Lavery

is honored with a Brick from the Lavery clan: Laura, Chris, Brian, Greg and Karen.

Joan Barker Lavery was born in Lake Forest, IL in 1926, the youngest of eight. True to her love of books, respect for education, and warmth toward children, she earned a bachelor's degree in Education at University of Wisconsin in Madison. She spent subsequent years teaching preschool through 2nd grade, running day cares including starting and operating a day care out of her church in later years which thrived under her control and raising five kids of her own, with an open door to all the countless neighborhood kids and pets that get thrown into the mix.

Thanks to her indestructible sense of humor, patience, creativity, and the kind of tenacious faith only a mother knows, she made it all fun and workable (which, financially, took a touch of genius). She juggled all this while putting up with a husband that not only didn't help, but consistently made things harder. (After all of us children were grown, she obtained a long-deserved divorce.)

Retired now, Joan is a Master Gardener in Denver and has more time to indulge in her passions: reading, gardening (you should see her garden!), hunting wildflowers in her beloved mountains, playing bridge and doing assorted things with a sundry friends, traveling, and, of course, visiting her children and grandchild. She hikes, learns, laughs, plants, and continues to watch the fruit of all her labors grow and, in turn, yield new fruit. Perhaps, in this way, she most truly deserves her title of Master Gardener.

September 5, 1998