Joan Helen Berg

SIOUX CITY -- Joan Helen Berg, 86, of Sioux City passed away Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010, at a local nursing home surrounded by her family.

Memorial services will be 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at Augustana Lutheran Church, with the Rev. Del Olivier officiating. Burial will be in Memorial Park Cemetery. Visitation will be 4 to 8 p.m. today, with the family present 6 to 8 p.m. and a prayer service at 7 p.m., at Meyer Brothers Morningside Chapel. Condolences may be sent online to meyerbroschapels.com.

Joan H. Berg was born the daughter of Jacob and Johanna (Kleeblatt) Huber, on Feb. 25, 1924, in Sioux City. She attended Bryant Elementary, North Junior and Central High Schools. As a teenager, she and her family moved to Sioux Falls, S.D., where she graduated from Washington High School in 1942.

She married Sgt. Orvis A. "Curly" Berg on May 4, 1945, in Sioux Falls. The couple enjoyed 62 years together before his death in 2006. From that union, three children were born.

The couple were members of Augustana Lutheran Church. She taught Sunday School and was active in Rhoda Circle.

A quiet, nurturing woman with a genuine sense of humor, Joan was a stay-at-home mom when her children were young. She opened her home to family and friends, and neighborhood children knew she would set an extra plate for them if they dropped by at mealtime. She was a Cub Scout den mother and a room mother at Crescent Park Elementary. For many years, she was a bookkeeper at Johnson Hardware. After she retired, she was a member of the Piece Corps quilting group at Augustana.

She is survived by a son, Thomas R. Berg of Murfreesboro, Tenn.; two daughters, Barbara (Larry) Dunlap-Berg of Nashville, Tenn., and Debra (Jeff) Sypersma of Sioux City; six grandchildren, Jason Berg, Gina (Patrick) Duffy, Katie (Chris) Olson, Airman Tim Sypersma, Megan (A.J.) Cobb, and Kristen Dunlap-Berg; five great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her husband; her parents; her stepmother, Maude Bosworth Huber; and her siblings, Herman Huber, George Huber, Dorothea Wagner, Elsie Herford, Hermina Spangler and Edward Huber.