Mrs. Josephine Dierks DeKoven's Obituary
Josephine “Jo” Dierks DeKoven passed away on November 17th, 2014 at Bartow Regional Medical Center. She was 93. She passed away due to heart failure. Jo and her husband, Reginald “Reggie” DeKoven Jr., whom she predeceases, had lived in Bartow since 2001.
Born August 14, 1921 in Columbus, GA to Henry and Dona Dierks, Jo graduated Columbus High School at age 15. She met her first husband, Russell Reed, an Army infantry lieutenant from Illinois who was stationed at Fort Benning, at a dance. The young couple was married in 1941 and set out for their first duty station, Camp Croft, SC. She was 19.
As an army wife and mother of two, Jo set up housekeeping in more than eight different places, including the Phillipine Islands and Venezuela. Her marriage to Colonel Reed, interspersed with long separations during WWII and Korea, lasted until his death in 1983 in St. Petersburg, FL where the couple had retired.
Jo was admired by contemporaries and younger army wives, whom she mentored and nurtured, for her humor, warmth and gracious manner. She was in the first graduating class at the Army Language School (now the Defense Language Institute) that permitted wives to attend language classes with their husbands. Jo’s fluency in Spanish was not only a pleasure to her but an asset to the family during a three-year tour in Caracas in the 1950’s. Her communication in Spanish was Fearless, regardless of idioms or the finer points of grammar. This sometimes resulted in literal translations that provided a laugh for her and her Spanish-speaking friends.
At Army posts all over the United States, she participated with enthusiasm in ladies’ golf groups, winning the club’s championship more than once. She was a loyal volunteer at the post thrift shops, officer’s wives clubs and the Red Cross. At Fort Riley, KS, she was chairman of the Red Cross hospital volunteers.
In 1989 Jo Reed married Reggie DeKoven in the mountains of North Carolina where they both had summer houses. The newly married DeKovens launched a life together that was filled with travel, golf, friends, combined families and much laughter. Spending part of the year in North Carolina, they moved six times in their 22 years together. Reggie teased that “every time Jo got a house decorated the way she wanted it, she was ready to move”.
Wherever the DeKovens moved, including their last move to Bartow from Big Canoe, GA, they made friends and became part of the community. In Bartow and Auburndale, Jo volunteered at the Good Shepherd Hospice. She was a member of First United Methodist Church in Bartow.
Jo DeKoven embraced life. A 65, she discovered white water rafting and introduced her friends to it. Her first attempt at cross-country skiing was at age 70. She played golf and bridge will into her eighties. Her attitude toward the incapacities of old age and surgeries was “get it fixed” and move on.
In addition to her husband, Reggie, Jo is survived by one daughter, Robin Reed Hendrickson of Oxford, MS, and one son, Russell Reed Jr., of Pinellas Park, FL; two step-children, Kathleen McMicken of Bartow and Reginald DeKoven III of Edinburg, TX; four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, four step-grandchildren, nine step-great-grandchildren and two step-great-great-grandchildren. Her survivors also include two sisters-in-law, Mary Dierks and Judy Patterson of Tampa, FL, and several nephews and a niece. She was preceded in death by her three brothers Henry and Charles Dierks and Paul Patterson.
A memorial service celebrating Jo DeKoven’s life will be held on Saturday Nov 22nd at 9:30am at Savannah Court of Bartow, 290 Idlewood Ave in Bartow. Private interment will be a Memorial Park Cemetery in St. Petersburg at a later date.
In lieu of flowers the family encourages donations to the Good Shepherd Hospice, 105 Arneson Ave, Auburndale, FL 33823 or the Building Fund, First United Methodist Church in Bartow, FL.
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