Joan Lucille Earl

Joan Lucille Earl (Brozicevich), 87-year-old card sharp, soup connoisseur, joke teller, and amateur news reporter, peacefully passed away on December 28, 2021, surrounded by her loved ones at the home she built with her husband, Bert Earl. If there is one thing we know about Grandma Earl, it was how much she loved her family and how she supported each and every member of it. Grandma was never the preachy type.But she loved singing the old hymns and enjoyed a Saturday Mass like none other. There was no doubt where she stood with the Lord. Joan grew up in Black Eagle.Here she met her love-of-a-lifetime while dancing the night away at the old Croatian Club. She saw this 6’2” cowboy standing at the bar. Her partner waltzed her up next to him and said, “She thinks you’re cute.”The rest was history.Joan and Bert were soon married and building a life together that lasted 67 years. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her 6 kids, Jeanne (Gary) Ward, Thomas Earl, Mary (Tim) McAllister, Beth (Casey) Cummings, Nancy (Wayne) Dykstra, and Holly (Skip) Halmes; along with her 17 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. Joan Earl loved life, friends, and family.It’s a good thing she believed in “the more the merrier,” because it was never just the 8 of them at the dinner table. Most nights at least one of the kids brought home a friend. She could make a pot of spaghetti go a mile. Joan was a homemaker in every sense of the word.She had an open-door policy and would always welcome you with a hug and one of her freshly baked cookies—her specialty was gingersnaps dipped in white chocolate. She was also the Martha Stewart of soup making. She and Bert grew a huge garden that Grandma used to feed her family throughout the year.Joan also enjoyed camping and family reunions, and cherry-picking. Grandma also considered herself bilingual—fluent in both English and Yugoslavian cuss words. Many of her grandchildren got in trouble with their parents for zealously repeating the new words they learned from Grandma.Plus, if you needed to get news passed along to family and friends, there was only one person you needed to call. She was her own type of Tele- “Gram.” She would keep that wireless, handheld telephone going for hours.Grandma’s love for words also made her an avid speller who could spell the 28-letter word, “antidisestablishmentarianism” without blinking an eye. Grandma also loved to share jokes of either the religious or inappropriate nature—there was no in-between. The moment she came across a good joke, she immediately got on the horn and shared it with all her friends and family no matter what the content was. She loved having an audience whether it was the person on the other end of the phone, family, and friends who stopped by, or the firemen who responded to one of her medical emergencies.While being wheeled out, she rallied and piped up and told them the story of why she and grandpa never got divorced—she always said it was because they could never find anyone to take the six kids. Grandmas was also a game lover.We believe she was the sole reason for the Yahtzee score cards staying in circulation. If you stopped by grandma’s, she was sure to get you to play a game (or 24) of Yahtzee. It was during these games you would hear her famous “ahh chicken boobs” saying whenever she had a bad roll. She did not stop at dice games. She was a solitaire player from way back. She was not above playing both sides of a Scrabble board or both hands for a Rummy game. She had no shame in telling you, “The right hand is cheating.” When she needed more excitement than a pack of cards provided, she loved a trip down to the City Bar to win it big after a bowl of their tomato soup. Grandma never missed an event whether it was a birthday party, wedding, or funeral. She was there in the front row, for it all. She especially loved a good funeral, and we hope she approves of her own. Because of the weather, we have postponed Grandma’s Life Celebration until spring. Grandma has only two regrets in this whole thing. First, that she could not be the one to call you all up on the phone with the news she had passed. And second, that she won’t be there live and in-person for her own funeral to regale you all with jokes and stories at the luncheon. Joan was proceeded in death by her father, Peter Brozicevich; and mother, Jeanne Christiansen.