Joan Marie Williams Galyan, age 77, of Oakhurst, CA, passed away on April 29, 2013. Joan was born on January 17, 1936, in Riverside, CA to Roy and Nellie Williams of Bass Lake, CA.
Throughout her life, she lived in Riverside, Long Beach, Bass Lake, Bakersfield, and Fresno, before she retired to the Oakhurst area in 1996.
Joan was a 1953 graduate of Sierra High School in Auberry, CA. While living in Bakersfield and raising a family, she attended Bakersfield College where she earned an Associate of Arts degree in sociology and an Associate of Arts degree in the Legal Secretarial Program.She was a mother and homemaker. She had also been employed as a legal secretary for the Kern County Probation Department, Kern County District Attorney’s Office, and the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office, from which she retired in 1996. Joan was a parishioner at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Bakersfield where she sang in the choir, and a parishioner at Our Lady of the Sierra Catholic Church in Oakhurst.
Joan’s interests included gardening, skiing, snowmobiling, backpacking in the high sierra mountains, fishing, socializing with close friends and family, and traveling the country and the world. She was an avid reader and shared her interests in books, television shows, and movies with her daughter, Cheryl, on a daily basis.
Joan’s interests also included her American Indian heritage which she pursued by working with the Sierra Mono Indian Museum in North Fork, CA, and contributing to American Indian schools and causes. She participated in the weekly Thursday gatherings at the Mono Museum where American Indian cultural information and stories were exchanged, and where she learned basket making from other local American Indian museum members.
Joan is survived by her husband, Chuck, of Oakhurst, daughter and son-in-law, Cheryl Hughey-Jones and Randy Jones, of Oakhurst, grandson Bradley Hughey of Bakersfield, granddaughter, Brittney Hughey of Oakhurst, brother Roy Williams and his wife Donna of Bass Lake, CA, sister Julie Ahrens, and brother Lou Williams, both of North Fork, CA. She was preceded in death by her son, Michael Hughey, of North Fork, CA, and her father and mother, Roy and Nellie Williams of Bass Lake, CA.
Visitation will be held on Sunday, May 5, 2013, from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm at Palm Memorial Sierra Chapel, Oakhurst, CA. A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Dominic Savio Catholic Church, on Monday, May 6, 2013, at 10:00 am. A Recitation of the Holy Rosary will precede the Mass at 9:30 am.
Remembrances may be made to: Sierra Mono Museum, 33103 Road 228, North Fork, Ca 93643
