Joyce Del Pino

Early on the morning of Friday, March 14, 2025, Joyce Marie Del Pino died and went on to everlasting glory. Her husband, the Rev. Dr. Jerome King Del Pino, sat with her in her final hours.

Joyce was born on October 1, 1946, at Victory Memorial Hospital in Stanley, Wisconsin, to Victoria Helen (Bednarczyk) and Charlie Johnson. She was baptized, took her first communion, and confirmed at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Stanley. She graduated from Gresham High School in 1964 and went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art and Art History from University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire. As an undergraduate, she did student teaching in Roseville, Minnesota, and later gave private art lessons in California.

In June 1968, she married Steven Larson, an ordained Lutheran pastor. Over 25 years, she and he served together in churches in Navarino, Wausau, and Seymour, Wisconsin. Together, they brought four children into the world - Marta, Brian, Ross, and Greta.

After Steve's passing in 1997, Joyce met Jerome. In July 2000, she and he married in St. Paul, Minnesota, and she moved to live with him in Stoughton, Massachusetts, for one year before they moved to Franklin, Tennessee. In 2004, Joyce began substitute teaching in the Williamson County public schools. In the summer of 2010, she completed her Master of Arts degree in special education at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, driving hours every day to attend her classes.

Joyce's career as a special education teacher lasted ten years, during which time she taught at Centennial High School, Page Middle School, and concluded her Special Education teaching career at Springhill Middle School in Springhill, Tennessee. She was a beloved and valued influence in the lives of dozens of students, earning a reputation for being especially creative in developing techniques to facilitate children's maximum participation in school activities and assignments, always with an eye toward helping them move toward independence. Though she loved every day with her pupils, the true joy of her time in the classroom was seeing them out and about in the world after they had completed school and would run to her with hugs of gratitude for what she had done for them.

During her marriage to Jerome, she and he savored opportunities to travel. Together they saw Alaska, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Germany, Zimbabwe, Argentina, India, the northern U.K., and Sweden, where they visited their grandchildren. They also enjoyed an annual new year's trip to Florida and summers listening to the river and the wind in the trees at the cabin Joyce and Steve had built in Pella, Wisconsin.

During their marriage, Joyce and Jerome were active members at Belmont United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. They participated in the Covenant Sunday School class, wrestling with the ways to live out their Christian faith as citizens and members of their community. Joyce invested her time and energy in the church's Homeplace ministry, a residential program for older women with developmental disabilities, and later the United Methodist Women and Church Women United, where she worked to inject joy into members' transition from independent to assisted living by helping to decorate their new space reflect their individual spirits.

In the last few of years of Joyce's life, she wrestled with primary progressive aphasia, which, though it impaired her speech and communication, was powerless to dim her spirit or joy. The gracious staff of Burton Court memory care, her home for the last nine months of her life, shared that she made an indelible impression in her short time living there and that, even without words, her personality always shone through.

Joyce is survived by her husband, Jerome King; her children with Steve - Brian (Erin) Larson and their children Erik, Peder and Kate, Marta (Dan) Wesenick and their children Max and Henry, Ross (Emile) Larson their children Maya and Drew, and Greta (Magnus) Kronqvist and their children Viveca and Oscar; and Jerome's children, Emily (Robert) Mays and their children Nala and Wesley, and Jerome (Tessa Lemos) Del Pino and their children Natalia and Charlie; a niece, Amy Toney; a sister, Linda (Dan) Bob; and a brother, Russel (Jane) Johnson; and cousins Donna Endru, Susie Hakes, and Mary Endru, wife of Joyce's now deceased cousin, David Endru. The friends, students, and coworkers whom she held dear in her heart are too many to number.

As a tangible way of supporting higher education, Joyce has established named endowed scholarships at each of the schools that she attended and the seminary that Steve attended. If you want to support higher education in Joyce's name, you may send your contribution to Encore Ministry of Belmont United Methodist Church, Nashville Tennessee. Be sure to indicate which school you want to contribute to in her name: Luther Northwestern Seminary (St. Paul, MN); The University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire and The University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh.

A private family burial will be in Peace Lutheran Cemetery in Baldwin, Wisconsin.