Dec. 7, 2023
Joan Marie Schramm Reckdahl, 87, died at St. Gertrude’s Living Community Dec. 7 after a full life that included a half-century of teaching school and an appointment by Gov. Rudy Perpich to the Minnesota Commission on Judicial Selection, where she helped to screen prospective state judges. Services will be 11 a.m., with visitation at 10 a.m. and lunch afterward, Saturday, Dec. 16, at Trinity Lutheran Church, 54384 E. Highway 12, Grove City.
Joan was born near Hutchinson to Henry and Bertha (nee Duesterhoeft) Schramm on Aug. 27, 1936. A McLeod County spelling-bee champ, she graduated from Hutchinson High School in 1954 and went on to graduate from Concordia College in St. Paul and the University of Minnesota.
Shortly after graduation from the U in 1958, she married Jerome Reckdahl of Gaylord and began work as an educator. In 1961, Jerry and Joan moved to Grove City. While he taught high school math, she taught English, then special ed, first in Grove City, then Atwater, then Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City High School. In all, she spent 50 years as a teacher, with an eight-year hiatus to raise the couple’s five children, Beth, twins Keith and Katy, Ben and Andrea.
Joan taught Sunday school and adult Bible classes at Trinity Lutheran Church, where she also wrote and delivered guest sermons. She also helped to lead the Meeker County Democratic Farmer Labor party, the Grove City Economic Development Corp., and the local Women’s Club and AAUW.
A consummate matriarch, Joan loved and guided her children and sent an endless stream of anniversary and birthday cards to extended family and friends.
Joan was preceded in death by her sister, Carol Spencer, in 1991; and her oldest daughter, Beth Ellenby, in 2008.
Survivors are many: Jerry, her husband of 65 years; two brothers, Leroy Schramm (Diana) of Helena, Montana, and Mark Schramm of Hutchinson; her close cousin, Naomi Helgevold; four children, Keith Reckdahl (Becky Epstein) of Palo Alto, California, Katy Reckdahl of New Orleans, Ben Bryant Reckdahl (Lonnie Davis) of Atlanta, Andrea Sweeney of Chanhassen; devoted son-in-law, Michael Ellenby; her eight grandchildren, Alex, Owen (Jinda), Lily and Elijah Sweeney, Jayde Ellenby, Elise and Eric Epstein, Hector Campbell; recently became nine with the arrival last year of a great-grandson, James Jerome Sweeney.
Arrangements are being handled by Johnson-Hagglund Funeral Home.
