Joyce Van Leuven

Joyce Van Leuven, our loving and beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, passed away March 8. She was a Lincoln County resident off and on for seven of the past 10 years.

She was born Joyce Laura Runnells on Dec. 23, 1940 in Salt Lake City, Utah, but moved to St. George in 1967, where she met and married Lynn Van Leuven. In her lifetime she also lived in Washington and Beryl, Utah, as well as Henderson, Las Vegas and Lincoln County, Nev.

Her last career was as a change person and a 21 dealer at the Railroad Pass Casino in Henderson, but at different times in her life she was also a waitress at the old Sugar Loaf caf? as well as the Front Desk Clerk/Manager at the Rodeway Inn and Travelodge East motels, helped to open the K-mart, and was a seamstress/trainer at the Wenzel sleeping bag and tent factory, all in St. George.

Some of her favorite things were movies and music, but she loved to laugh and enjoyed traveling, animals, and the outdoors, and she was an avid crossword puzzle solver and board game player. In her youth she sang solo and in the school choir at assemblies and also played the accordion. She was also an unpublished poet, a painter and a photographer that also developed, enlarged and printed and tinted her own photographs. A fashion designer was one of her passions too, as she designed and made all of her own clothing during high school and beyond. She also found time to get into genealogy and traced her husband?s ancestry back to the 1200s.

In her final years, she was always with those who loved her: her only child Richard Van Leuven, his wife Teresa and her granddaughter Chrystal (Jason) Marshall and her family including three great-grandchildren, as well as those living further away including cousins, nieces, nephews and another granddaughter Elizabeth Cobb-Holmes and six more great-grandchildren.

Her final days were spent at Grover C. Dils Medical Center Long-Term Care Facility where she quickly made many new friends among the residents and staff who insist that she was always smiling, dancing and singing and made everyone?s day on numerous occasions including her final day before being called home.

She is, and always will be, missed by all who knew and loved her.

A memorial service is being held March 29 at 1 p.m. at the Caliente LDS chapel. All who knew Joyce and would like to attend and remember her are welcome.