In August of 2020, Jean went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Peritoneal Cancer. This cancer was later re-diagnosed to Uterine and Ovarian Cancer. After several opinions, she chose to start her treatment by having surgery to have a full hysterectomy and to remove any trace of cancer in other organs.
She put off the surgery so she could meet her newest granddaughter, Catherine Mary Jean. She had her surgery on October 6th, with her kids and grandkids cheering her on with our custom made shirts. The surgery was much longer than expected, and they had to remove several organs to get all the cancer, but they did it.
She had such a long hill to climb and things kept getting in her way. Once the sepsis set in and her kidneys started to fail, we knew it was time to let her go.

While this time was difficult, we tried our hardest to keep her memory alive. Doug and I sending pictures of her that she would hate back and forth. And we began to see Hawks, a lot of Hawks in the sky. With most of her family having degrees from University of Iowa, we figured this was her telling us she was ok! We still see hawks at sports games for her grandkids or at car rider lines.

We started the Joy for Jean Turkey Walk in 2020. Since she was never able to do the Turkey Trot with her family because she was at home cooking Thanksgiving dinner, we are now doing this in her honor. We ask that if you are participating in this walk, that you print our annual "Turkey Walk" sign, take a picture and send it to us so we can put it with our slideshow.

Still, her memory was so strong that this was NOT enough. So in 2021, we started Joy for Jean. We reached out to two of the schools that Jean worked at and put a lot of her heart into and asked them to compile a list of books that the library or the classrooms could use. And then, we put this out into the universe. We were able to donate 2 large boxes of books, with a Joy for Jean inscription in the inside cover to 2 different schools.

As an update, in 2022 we were able to complete lists for 2 schools. This provided over 100 books to our 2 chosen schools.

So here we are. A formed non profit, 501(c)(3) company.

While we think of her daily, we hope that you will honor her at least once a year during this time.

You will see the donate now button in the top right corner if you would like to donate to the cause. Most monies raised will go towards books for the schools.