JoAn Audrey (Lent) Skyrme

JoAn A. (Lent) Skyrme, 88, of Belmond, passed away on Wednesday, November 11, 2020, at the Rehabilitation Center of Belmond. Memorial services for JoAn Skyrme will be held on Saturday, November 14, 2020 at 11:00 AM at the Belmond United Methodist Church, 1031 1st Street South East in Belmond, with Pastor Leila Blackburn officiating. Burial will take place at the Belmond Cemetery. Visitation will be held on Saturday, November 14, 2020 from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM at the Belmond United Methodist Church.

JoAn Audrey Lent was born on December 29, 1931 in a small house on the west side on Highway 69, a little over a mile south of Belmond in Wright County, Iowa. Her parents were Ethel Magnolia (Hedges) Lent and Claude Arthur Lent, and she joined sister Marilyn. When she was two years old, the family moved their little house to Belmond, settling on 8th Avenue in the Berry Addition.

Eventually brothers Ralph, Charles and Virgil were born, all in that small house. When JoAn was four, she and Ralphie had pneumonia. His was complicated by a throat infection, and he died at age three. Virgil contacted rheumatic fever at the age of two, had a return of the disease when he was ten, and with an enlarged heart and edema, died at nineteen. Five months after Dad and Uncle Pete (Mom’s brother Ralph) went on defense plant work in the early 40’s, Mom gave birth to twins at the Belmond Hospital. Clair Dean and Claudia Jean joined the family in the fall of 1942, and when the men returned soon after, Uncle Pete bought a farm south of Burchinal, and the family moved there to farm it while he returned to teaching.

JoAn graduated from Swaledale Consolidated School in 1949 and having earned a Farm Bureau scholarship attended Iowa State Teachers College at Cedar Falls, IA for two years. She taught at the Floyd Consolidated School for two years, and then at Rockwell for a semester. She then moved to Albuquerque, NM for seven years. She attended the University of New Mexico, worked several clerical jobs and played piano and sang in cocktail lounges. She spent some time back in Iowa, and then moved to Cheyenne, WY, where she continued office and piano work.

Returning to Iowa in 1964, she was secretary to the plant manager at the Oliver (White) manufacturing plant; lost her father to a heart attack and, following the Charles City tornado, moved to Denver, CO for a short time. Returning to Iowa, she married Wayne Skyrme and they lived in Mason City, where she was house parent for the Cerro Gordo County Juvenile Home, and then became secretary, first at the UCC Congregational, and then at First United Methodist Church in Mason City.

From there she sensed a call to ministry, and pursued studies with the United Methodist Church in 1976. After serving the church in Charles City for three years, she was appointed to the Lamont-Aurora charge in Buchanan County for over seven years. Following four years with the Lake Mills and Thompson churches, she was appointed to the United Church of Rowan, where she served for nine years.

Retiring to Belmond in 2001, she was reacquainted with old friends and childhood classmates and met new friends who welcomed and included her in various activities and responsibilities. She was active in the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, and Trinity Lutheran Church choirs; served on the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission, the Friends of the Library Board, and was a member of the Belmond Medical Center Auxiliary. She also served as secretary of the Rowan Lions Club and Matinee Musicale Club of Mason City, and as chaplain of P.E.O. Chapter LV in Belmond.

She left this life for a rest and her new life on Wednesday, November 11, 2020 at the Rehabilitation Center of Belmond.

She was preceded in death by her parents; two brothers Ralph Lent and Virgil Lent; three sisters Marilyn Parker, Claudia Jean Boutchyard and Rosalie McCoy; nephew Jeffrey Scot Boutchyard, and beloved grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Surviving her are son James Robert (Joanne) Skyrme of Manchester, England; four grandchildren Kaitlyn, Christopher, Meghan and Jillian; four great-grandchildren Cassidy, Tuckyr, Alexzander and Sebastian; two brothers Charles (Carol) Lent of Florida and Clair Dean Lent of Alaska; nieces and nephews Mary, Thom, Jaime, Rodney, Richard, Steven, Michelle, Eric, and Lisa; and other cousins and their families, and many friends, for whom she was most grateful.