Obituary
Joan Ray Yeatman
Joan Ray Yeatman of LaCrosse, WI, died Tuesday, 9/26/23, from injuries sustained in a one car accident.
Joan was born in Beaumont, Texas, on 11/14/39. Her parents were Joyce Helen Houston Yeatman and Frank Raymond Yeatman, Jr. The family moved back to Lake Charles in 1953 and Joan graduated from LaGrange High School in 1957. She received her bachelor’s degree from USL, her master’s degree from Duke University, and her PHD in English from the University of Oregon.
Joan began her professional career in 1968 in the English Department of the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse. She was a professor of Literature and Women’s Studies, retiring in 2000 as Professor Emeritus.
She was preceded in death by her parents and by her brother Frank Yeatman.
Survivors include her sister Eleanor Yeatman and spouse Richard Kleeberg of Winters, CA, her brother Bruce Houston Yeatman and spouse Doris M. Merrick of Florham Park, NJ, sister-in-law Eileen Heiny of Bridgewater, MA, and nephew, James Raymond Yeatman and spouse Nichole S.Yeatman of Myrtle Beach, SC.
Joan had many dear friends, colleagues and neighbors in LaCrosse. Joan loved creating beautiful quilts with her friends in the LaCrosse Area Quilters. Musically, she was an avid fan of Grand Opera, and for many years she participated with the shape Note Singers. She loved birds, flowers, and travel: she toured most of Europe and visited Egypt and Easter Island.
Joan will be missed by many.
A beautiful person and valued colleague – I will remember Joan for her good cheer and personal support of many years; she always called me “the kid” of the department. She taught me computer use and made my professional life much easier. Joan had one of the best smiles in the department. We will all miss her.
I am so sorry to learn of Dr. Yeatman’s passing. I was a student of hers back in the early 1980s. She was a wonderful teacher, and one really worked to earn a good grade. I will include her in my prayers this evening.
I met Joan at the Y when she attended the Senior Exercise classes.
She was so nice = a pleasant lady = had lunch a few times at the
China Buffet =
She will be missed
I first met Joan through the LaCrosse Area Quilters group. She had a sense of humor that always made me smile. I then was fortunate to meet her again when I joined the Y. I will greatly miss her smile and sense of humor.
Joan and I often visited at Marcus Theatre before and after the operas. She was such a gentle, soft-spoken woman with a smile that never ended. I loved hearing about her frequent travels. May Joan rest in peace now.
I knew Joan through the quilt guild and she will be deeply missed by all who knew her. She was an amazing quilter and a wonderful friend. She always had a smile. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family during this difficult time.
Hello
Joan has been a tax client for 16 years. I teased her about how perfectly organized her records were and that I should hire her to ‘teach’ a class on tax records preparation. Prior to Covid she assisted the AARP tax volunteers at the library and we’d laugh about how she was the organizer and more than happy to leave the preparation to others! She was an intelligent, unassuming and all around pleasant person to know. I feel honored to have known her during the non professional portion of her life. Rest in peace, Joan.
I was a volunteer with Joan for many years at the AARP income tax program
She had Infinite patience and good humor. She lived close to me and I would talk with her as she walked the neighborhood. She will be missed.
To Joan’s family: My sister in law and I got to know Joan on the Bus Quilt Tour last weekend, she was such a nice lady, wish I would have spent more time getting to know her. So sorry to hear about her accident, sending prayers to the family.
Pam Beyer and Verona Spooner
I worked with Joan for many years at UWL. I learned from her and I appreciated her kindness especially to new faculty.
I had the good fortune of volunteering with Joan for over 11 years at the library with the AARP FreeTax Program in La Crosse. What a pleasure that time was. Joan was so gracious, intelligent, interesting, organized, creative, independent and so at ease in handling any situation that came up. She often had her beautiful quilts on display at the library and one day she said she wanted me to have one and I should go pick out one of her three quilts on display. Wasting no time I did so and now proudly can say I have an original Yeatman. One day we were talking about life in retirement. She said to me that her professional life was a life of words but her life in retirement was a life of color and music. Joan lived her life the way she wanted and I am honored to be one of the many people who knew her and now miss her.
Joan Yeatman was one of my favorite English professors. She made me work hard to continually improve my reasoning and papers. In later years, I enjoyed running into her at the Y and viewing her wonderful quilts at library shows.
I met Joan through the Y and our fun fitness classes together. She will be missed. You are all in my thoughts and prayers.
There are few people at The University of Wisconsin La Crosse in the last half century more important to advancing the issues of racial justice and diversity than Joan Yeatman. A founding member of the Women’s Institute and of the Women’ Studies Department, she was always a continuing and active supporter of programs to treat students of color with equity and compassion. Her most important achievement was to Chair the Committee to Investigate Allegations of Racial Discrimination at UW Lacrosse (April 11, 1983). A special committee of 9 representing faculty, students and administration, she chaired it over 100’s of hours of testimony and deliberation for 9 months with insight and patience and crafted a report of which she was the primary author that made over 42 recommendations. The Report began with a 4 page introductory rationale explaining the basis for the investigation. Each recommendation was preceded by a section explaining the evidence and reasoning for the conclusions. The report was endorsed unanimously by the Committee, unanimously passed by the faculty senate, and unanimously by the student senate as well. This was overwhelmingly Joan’s work guiding the report through political and emotional difficulties to shepherd it to fruition. The Report resulted in fundamental changes in how the university treated students of color, a legacy of extreme importance in 1983. All that and a delightful and witty conversationalist with an unswerving moral compass.
Joan was an integral member of any committee in the English Department, a colleague who “knew the ropes” and the history underlying the discussion, and a person you were lucky to count as a friend.
I am most grateful to Joan for her missionary zeal in introducing me to the glories of shape-note singing. I also very much appreciated her dedication to the AARP Tax-Aide Program. Always a delight, she was a dear colleague and will be missed.
Sounds like a life well lived! I never knew Joan, but have had pleasure in reading of her life. Well done, Joan. RIP
Joan Was A Wonderful,Kind, & Caring Woman. I Always Loved Seeing Her Friendly Smile, & Her Reading Good Books. She Always Ordered The Same Soup At Pickerman’s, Cream Of Chicken Wild Rice. It Was A Pleasure Being Her Waitress & Friend, Rest In Peace Joan, Love Always, Hollie Wyman
Joan was a talented lady from many perspectives
My most recent interactions were at the Y her travels upcoming or what we were reading
Recently realized she had died as a result of car accident How sad she died too soon alas
My sympathies to her family
May she rest in peace
Betty
Joan and I often lunched together in the faculty lounge after I came here from the University of Arkansas in 1984 as Computer Science faculty, located for years on the same floor of Wimberly Hall as her English Department. She recognized me as a fellow southerner by how I did a few things such as putting ice in a drink. We shared interests in wildflowers, which she knew much better than I, and photographing them, which was my forte. After we both retired, we would sometimes encounter each other at one or the other restaurant where eating lunch. She helped a friend do taxes. We also served on committees together, where Joan could always be counted on to bring clarity into the issues under discussion. In recent years we often touched base as Facebook friends. I had lately intended to ask if she had known my dad’s cousin and her husband in Lake Charles, since they also had nice flowers in their yards, as Joan and I also grew. Joan herself was a rare flower blooming in so many ways. Like many others, I especially valued her clear thinking, honesty, intelligence, and integrity. When the faculty members were betting in a pool as to when the last ice crystal in our big snow pile would disappear in the Spring, they all agreed to accept Joan’s pronouncement of the exact date and time, although I preferred to lose money on stocks, since several who wagered were not above assisting the melting with a cordless hair dryer or augmenting the accumulation with ice brought from elsewhere. Still, Joan was so trusted and respected that all participants were agreed to accept her verdict. I’m so sorry to learn of her unexpected death. I hope she didn’t suffer or was relieved from pain by medication. Somehow I felt like Joan would live forever and we would always be running into each other. Now, I think of so many things we could have talked about. At least she added grace and respect to almost four decades for me, for which I’m profoundly thankful.
I stumbled across this and was overtaken by sadness at seeing it. I had Dr. Yeatman in the early 1980s. She pushed me to take on authors I generally avoided because of their difficulty and complexity. She also was responsible for me actually enjoying poetry for the first time, and that in itself was quite an accomplishment. She was a classy person and I feel fortunate to have had her.
I just heard about the tragic passing of Mrs. Yeatman today. I tried calling to schedule for the annual inspection and the phone was disconnected. I stopped over to find out what had happened. I am so sorry for your loss. What a wonderful lady and customer. She was always cheerful and happy when I met with Mrs. Yeatman.