Stoddard, Joyce

Joyce Stoddard, 87, formerly of Iowa City, died Saturday, April 6, 2013, in Milwaukee, Ore.; where she has resided in her later years to be near her daughter and family. Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 13, at Gay & Ciha Funeral and Cremation Service in Iowa City, with burial to follow at Memory Gardens Cemetery. Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday at the funeral home.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made in her memory to the First United Methodist Church of Iowa City.

Online condolences may be sent for her family through the web at .

Joyce Ellen Stoddard was born Feb. 26, 1926, in Madison, Wis., the daughter of Dorothy Mary and Everett R. McNeight. She graduated from Keokuk High School in 1943. Joyce then attended Grinnell College with a major in Psychology and then transferred to the University of Iowa (B.A. Psychology 1947). She became a member of Zeta Tau Alpha, an active social sorority where she met her future husband, Roy Stoddard Jr. at a social function. They were married in Keokuk in 1948. After he finished law school, they moved to Dubuque for his first law assignment, but then moved to Oskaloosa, where Roy was a partner with Gilbert and Stoddard. In 1957, they adopted a daughter, Marlana. An invitation to teach in the School of Law at the University of Wyoming led them to Laramie where they lived for some time, where they enjoyed family skiing and snowshoeing in the Bighorn Mountains. The marriage dissolved in 1974 and thereafter she moved to Iowa City where she met her partner for the rest of her life, Ron Cochran. They traveled the world for over 30 years, visiting more than 25 countries. For many years they worked side by side with their insurance business, RJJR, when not traveling.

Joyce's family includes her daughter, Marlana Stoddard Hayes; son-in-law, Robert L. Hayes; and granddaughter, Emily Jun Hayes, all of West Linn, Ore.

She was preceded in death by Ron, who died March 9, 2008.

Published in The Gazette April 9, 2013.