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Ellen Joyce Becker © Roberts and Sons Funeral Home 06-2020 Submitted by: Glenn
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February 20, 1927 - June 12, 2020
Ellen Joyce Becker was born in Belleville, Kansas, February 20, 1927 to the Czech family of Frank and Alice Splichal Spurney. She grew up in Belleville, KS, graduating as valedictorian from high school in 1945. She went to the University of Kansas, where she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Commercial Art in 1949 and her Master’s Degree in Commercial Art in 1950. At KU, she was a member of the KU band and the acapella girls’ choir.
At a Kansas-Nebraska football game in the late 1940’s, she was participating in the KU girls’ pep club when a young Oklahoma man, who was a member of the KU boys’ pep club, sat beside her. That is when Don and Joyce’s romance began. They were married on Sept. 2, 1950, in Belleville, Kansas. They were happily married for 57 years. Dr. Becker and she were Blackwell’s Family of the Year in 2005.
She was a member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, where she played the organ for 46 years.
She was also a member of the St. Joseph Altar Society, P.E.O. and the Blackwell Hospital Auxiliary, for which she was responsible for the annual scrap book.
One of her favorite activities was attending Gene Dougherty’s art classes at NOC, where she painted with other friends. Other favorite activities included playing 1940-1950’s music, classical music and Czech polkas on her piano as well as singing at the nursing home on Thursday mornings with a group of musicians. She also volunteered for the Red Cross Bloodmobile for 50 years, and in 2007 received the Clara Barton Award.
She loved going out to their farm and doing chores like feeding the horses, peacocks, ducks, geese, turkeys, guineas, and chickens. Another of her joys was working at Becker Clinic, typing her favorite doctor’s dictation for 31 years. She loved the other employees and all the patients. In her spare time, when her husband was making house calls and delivering babies, she china painted a set of dishes for each of their four children and 5 grandchildren, plus other plates, etc.
She excelled in many art forms, such as oil painting, watercolor, pen and ink, wood carving, needlepoint, music, singing, and dancing. She loved nature and animals, and her heaven on earth was the patio at her house where she enjoyed the flowers. Also, she looked forward to having coffee with her friends.
She had fun drawing and painting backgrounds for musical productions at the high school auditorium, and she made tons of posters for school and parades. She enjoyed making the designs for the quilt that the Hospital Auxiliary would make and raffle. She proudly created the Blackwell Centennial Logo.
She felt very blessed by her wonderful husband and family. She is survived by her children; Becky Hutton and husband Dennis, Kathy Becker, Susie Graves and husband Chris and George Becker; five grandchildren; Aaron Hutton, Laura Lauchner, Mark Graves, Charlie Graves, Max Graves, and six great-grandchildren; Jonathan and Isaac Lauchner, Anna, Caroline, and Mary Ellen Graves, and Cooper Graves; brothers, Frank Spurney and Joe Spurney, and numerous nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Don Becker, her parents, and sister Stella Marie Polansky.
Joyce was an amazing woman who appreciated the beauty in all things. She was loving, accepting, a gracious hostess, and friend to all. Her life can be captured by her own words, “Hasn’t this been fun!”
The family will greet visitors on Wednesday evening, June 17th in the Roberts and Son Funeral Home Chapel from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Because of COVID-19, masks are REQUIRED to attend the family visitation.
Due to social distancing practices, a private funeral mass will be held on Thursday with Father Ben Lwin officiating. Burial will follow at the Blackwell Cemetery.
Casketbearers will be Mark Graves, Charlie Graves, Max Graves, Aaron Hutton, Ray Lauchner and Larkin Armstrong.
Memorials have been established in her honor with Stillwater Medical Center – Blackwell Campus, Multiple Sclerosis Society and Hospice of North Central Oklahoma in c/o Roberts and Son Funeral Home, 120 W. Padon, Blackwell, Oklahoma 74631.
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