Birth: 1935 Death: 2024 Joanne Spring passed away peacefully May 18, 2024, five days after her 89th birthday. Beloved wife of James D. Spring, mother of Barbie (Lehmkuhler) and Randy (Bell), and sister of Jean (Lamson Spencer) and Jere (Friedman), she was a devoted resident of Monrovia and steadfast member of the Monrovia First Presbyterian Church for over 60 years.
She was born Joanne Elaine Orr on May 13, 1935 to Emery and Mae (Patterson) Orr, in Oshkosh, Nebraska. She and her sisters loved their rural western-Nebraska upbringing; the family moved to Denver, Colorado while the girls were still in elementary school. Joanne graduated in 1953 from South High School, and went off to college that fall, on scholarship, to Whitworth College, a Presbyterian college in Spokane, Washington.
There she was involved in the school’s Gospel Teams, Student Government, and was the Valedictorian upon her graduation in 1957. At Whitworth she met her first husband, James R. Bell, and after a brief few years of seminary school for James and teaching positions for Joanne – and with the birth of their daughter Barbie – they settled in Monrovia.
It was here that a second child was born, Randy, and in 1965 Joanne began a 35+ year career working in the Monrovia Unified School District.She was an elementary school teacher at Santa Fe and Wild Rose Schools. It was at Wild Rose that she came under the formative leadership of Don Montgomery – they would become great professional and personal frie.
