Joyce Darlene Carlson

Joyce Carlson WISCONSIN DELLS, Wisconsin - Joyce Darlene Barko Carlson, 72, of Wisconsin Dells, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, April 30, 2008, at Maplewood Skilled Nursing Center of Sauk City, Wisconsin. Funeral Service will be 11 a.m. on Monday, May 5, 2008, at Bethany Lutheran Church in Wisconsin Dells. The Rev. Craig Wolfgram will officiate. Visitation will be from 9 to 11 a.m. on Monday, May 5, 2008, at the church. The Picha Funeral Home and Crematory of Lake Delton, Wis. assisted the family with arrangements. Joyce was born July 6, 1935, in Muscatine, the daughter of Edward and Ruth Curry Barko. Her parents had a large strawberry and vegetable farm on the outskirts of Muscatine and she spent many summers of her youth picking strawberries on their suburban farm. She attended grade school and high school in Muscatine, transferring to a Seventh Day Adventist academy near Chicago for her senior year and graduated in 1953. Later she worked for Corn Products in the quality control division of their alcohol production in Muscatine. She was a wonderful wife and mother, a good cook and homemaker, an avid bridge player and she had a wonderful sense ...[more]

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humor. For 22 years she worked for and managed Swiss Maid Fudge in Wisconsin Dells, specializing in making turtles. She also served as secretary of the Wisconsin Dells Art Association for many years and was a volunteer office worker at Bethany Lutheran Church. She met her husband, Dr. Robert L. Carlson, at his brother's wedding in Chicago in 1958 and were married in Muscatine on Oct. 29, 1960, eventually making their home in Wisconsin Dells. They were blessed with two sons, Robert Rob James, an attorney in Minneapolis and Jon Edward, a copywriter in Milwaukee. Jon and Jennifer Slater were married in Wausau, Wisconsin in 1997 and have two children, Samantha Anne, 7, and Aaron Jon, 5. Liv Lyngstad, an AFS student from Norway, stayed with the family in 1969-70 and is a daughter by mutual consent. Lyngstad is vice principal of an elementary school in Oslo, Norway. Mrs. Carlson is further survived by two brothers, Don Barko and wife, Janet, of Muscatine and James Barko and wife, Gail, of Grand Rapids, Michigan and a sister, Janet Westberg and husband, Stan, of Prentice, Wisconsin. She was preceded in death by her parents.