Joyce Harms

[gn_spacer size=”20″] [gn_heading style=”1″]Joyce Harms[/gn_heading]

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. February 6 at Michelotti-Sawyers Mortuary in Billings for Joyce Harms, who died on February 2 of age-related causes. She was 94.

She was born in Terry, Montana, on August 31, 1917, to Charles and Margaret McCulloch. She attended public school in Circle and in Sheridan, Oregon, where the family had relocated in 1932. She received a teaching credential from Oregon Normal School and ultimately completed a four-year degree at Eastern Montana College. Joyce taught for 35 years in rural McCone County schools and in Circle's seventh and eighth grades before she retired in 1978.

Joyce loved to read. She solved crossword puzzles with ease. She traveled widely, visiting much of the United States, the South Pacific, Asia, and the British Isles. For 50 years in Circle and Billings she was a "Jazzercise" devotee, exercising her love of music and dance and acquiring many wonderful friends. She loved her grandchildren, Zoe and Joshua, and was "eager to hold" her first great grandchild, Joshua's daughter Atalie, born in Denver on January 6.

She will be remembered by her family, her many, many friends, her colleagues, and all the good people at Billings Clinic, Advanced Care Hospital, and the Aspen Meadows Community who helped her "fight the good fight" these past twenty months as a bright, fun-loving, courageous, and inspirational woman. No one who knew Joyce will forget her.

Survivors include her daughter Marcia Balyeat of Billings; son Jan (Eileen) Ophus of Eugene, Oregon; granddaughter Zoe Ophus of Eugene; grandson Joshua (Becky) Ophus of Denver, Colorado; and great granddaughter Atalie Lyla.

She was preceded in death by parents Charles and Margaret McCulloch; brothers Cecil, Hubert, William, Eugene, and James; sister Marie Goodale Bing; and her spouses, Earle Ophus, Fred Boyum, and Vernon Harms.

Memorials may be made to the Parmly Billings Library Attn: Memorials, 510 N Broadway, Billings, MT 59101.

Please share your remembrance with others. After review you memory will be posted to this page and shared with the family.