Barbara Joan Deepe

Born in Hebron, raised on a farm near Carleton, graduate of Belvidere High School, Barbara Joan Deepe was a successful, big-city businesswoman, adventuresome world traveler and prolific needle crafter.

She died Sept. 2, 2017, peacefully in her historic house in San Francisco. Often called by her middle name of Joan, she was 80 years old.

The younger daughter born to Martin and Doris Widler Deepe, Joan began her education in the Coon Ridge country school that her father had attended. Then she transferred for the eighth grade to Belvidere schools, graduating in 1954.

She was gifted with exceptionably nimble fingers. During her high school days, those fingers sped over piano keys to play Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee and earned her a standing ovation at a recital. After attending a business school in Lincoln, she used those fingers for typing that gained her employment at an insurance company in Omaha and then a Wall Street law firm in New York. Then those fingers facilitated her two-year assignment with the U.S. State Department in Vienna.

Returning to the United States in 1961, she journeyed to San Francisco when the city was abuzz with hippies and soon anti-war protestors. She studied to be a stenographic court reporter and worked in that field.

Soon the independent-minded young woman with a free spirit and a pixie smile launched Joan’s Secretarial Service in the heart of the competitive financial district of San Francisco. From her one-person office during this pre-computer era the sounds of her fast-flying fingers typing legal briefs or statistical tables could be heard down the hallway.

She did well enough that she vacationed at far-flung places. She took a bus trip through parts of the Middle East and visited Afghanistan long before U.S. combat troops arrived –and are still there. She took river cruises down the Volga in the Soviet Union and the Rhine through Germany. She flew to Australia and adored the koala bears that were living reminders of her beloved teddies she had played with as a kid.

She recalled recently that just 40 years ago she could buy and move into her treasured Victorian-styled home on the edge of the lush Holly Park in the Bernal Heights section of San Francisco. In the evenings there, her never-idle fingers turned to needlework. She embroidered dozens of samplers for her Mother and sister and two queen-sized quilts, one for her sister and one as the 50 ^th wedding anniversary present in 1984 for her parents. She made none for herself.

She is survived by her mother, Doris; sister Beverly and her husband, Chuck Keever; aunts Audrey Else and Marilyn Widler, and numerous cousins.

A Celebration of Barbara’s Life will be held 2:00pm, Friday, September 15, 2017 at the United Church of Christ in Belvidere, Nebraska with Pastor Kim Dunker officiating. Burial will be in the Belvidere City Cemetery. The casket will remain closed and there will be no public visitation. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to The Thayer County Museum, Belvidere, NE 68315. Price Funeral Home, Hebron, Nebraska is in charge of these arrangements.