Joyce Hafen

The above photo of Joyce Welker Hafen and her husband Lt. Earl Guy Hafen was probably taken when they were first married. There is another photo of Joyce under the Media Tab above which depicts Joyce (on the left) with her sisters, Margaret, Rhoda Mae, Ella and Ruth Welker. This photo was taken in November of 1996. Both photos were found on Family Search.org.

Tribute to Joyce Welker Hafen by her son Greg Hafen: Joyce Hafen was born in Paris, Idaho on December 5, 1920, and was the sixth daughter of seven sisters and the eighth child born to Roy A. Welker and Elizabeth Hoge. She was exposed to the LDS church from an early age. Her father, Roy A. Welker was very active in the Mormon Church holding many important positions in the Paris, Idaho Stake, and was a stake president for 12 years. Roy was also very active in public office but never ran for a position.

Her father was called as mission president of the Austria-Germany Mission. That included all of Austria, part of Germany, and part of Switzerland. Joyce was 13 years old when she went there. Her sisters: Norma, six, Margaret, 15, Rhoda, 18 went with her. She was enrolled in German schools and was required to learn the German language. She reports that that was a difficult experience.

She was exposed to multiple cultural experiences such as museums, operas, and travel to other countries during or after the mission. She and her sisters also traveled through greater Berlin and observed lovely old buildings, statues, trees and parks. In the summer, the Welker’s and many of the missionaries would go to a lake or forest for picnics to play baseball and other games. At that time, swimming was allowed for missionaries. However there was a tragic death in a swimming pool of a missionary and the body had to be sent home.

Both Joyce and her family had many important visitors to the mission home along with many of the full-time missionaries who came there often to eat. She had to adjust to different kinds of food including: Rouladen, Kloese, red cabbage, and Napoleons, also some different kinds of bread and other pastry. But the mainstay was the German diet of potatoes, cabbage and pork.

The Hitler regime was close to its peak at the time the Welker’s occupied Germany. Hitler’s plan was to make Germany the master race and there were many political events that were uncomfortable to the Welker family. It was a difficult experience to keep the church affairs in line with government policies. The Mormon Church was continuously suspect and under surveillance. Other churches were not allowed to proselytize, but due to close relationship between church leaders, Elizabeth Hoge Welker and members of the German leadership, the Mormon Church was able to continue its missionary work for several years. The girls were caught up in the excitement of Hitler.

Joyce was a 16-old young woman when the 1936 Summer Olympics were held in Berlin. The city made a huge Stadium, an Olympic swimming pool, and track and field for the Olympics. Joyce was in a school which had been asked to prepare dances for the Olympics. Hitler attended events and Joyce remembers she was in a group that danced in front of him.

The Germans adopted an “Eintopf Gericht” which meant on every Monday people were to have only one meal per day and the money saved was contributed to the government to help the poor. This may have been borrowed from the Mormons, because Joyce’s mother had German female friends who were close to Hitler and cared about the church’s policies and allowed them to continue many of their programs unhindered, except the young men mutual program, because Hitler required the young men to join the youth camps.

Her father traveled extensively during the time he was mission president to several countries and occasionally took his wife Elizabeth with him. However, these three younger sisters were enrolled in school and were able to take buses and a train in and around Berlin to many famous and beautiful sites including old buildings, parks, museums, etc.

Once, the Welker family traveled by bus to observe the Oberammergau Passion Play in Budapest. That event only happened every 10th year, but it occurred while the Welker’s were in Germany. There were many orchestras who congregated at this time. So the family was exposed to many musical events along the Danube River. At a specific time all of the orchestras combined under the baton of one director to play a favorite tune: the Blue Danube Waltz.

At the end of Roy Welker’s time as Mission President, the family visited Vienna, Austria; Budapest, Hungary; Venice, Milan, and Genoa, Italy. There also was time spent in Rome and in Switzerland. One afternoon they spent time on the Adriatic sea. They also visited Denmark, Sweden, and Holland and sailed from Southampton aboard the S. S. Washington.

At the end of the three-year mission, the parents presented the daughters with the choice of either buying a new car to drive across the states to Utah, or take a boat to New York and then go to Cuba, pass through the Panama Canal, up Acapulco, Mexico and on to Los Angeles. The sisters decided to go the Panama canal route.

Roy A. Welker was called to be a president of several institutes of religion and Joyce was able to travel with him and her mother to some of the sites. She attended Snow College in Ephraim Utah. She attended Dixie college in Southern Utah where she may have met Earl Hafen.

Because of these experiences of travel with her parents and siblings, she and Earl were able to do several very fun or interesting trips abroad as well. On at least one occasion Earl and Joyce along with friends went to Baja, California to a fishing village. The men went out on a boat and caught several swordfish. The women stayed home and visited or toured the surrounding area.

On another occasion, Earl Hafen was invited with several other veterinarians to make a People-to-People tour to Germany and Russia. My mother reported back to us that although the time in Germany was good, their experience in Russia was not so delightful. The repressive government at the time made it difficult to enjoy the sightseeing and visiting there. My mother reported that when the plane with the People-to-People veterinarians and wives lifted off from the Moscow airport, all of the passengers broke out into a spontaneous clapping and shouts for joy.

Later in life, Joyce participated in Brigham Young University tours to such places as India, China, Vietnam and neighboring countries. She has enjoyed visiting many of the countries around the world as a grateful tourist.

Some of my earliest recollections of life with Joyce Welker Hafen were that she was always at home when my siblings and I came home from school. I can picture in my mind our kitchen in the Laurel Drive home and my mother preparing dinner for the family. When my dad would come home we would sit around the yellow kitchen table and talk and have a great meal and enjoyed each other’s company.

On one occasion I remember my brother, Mark, inhaled a pebble into his lung. This created a near crisis. And, my mother was very concerned because of the fear of pneumonia or worse. As a family, we all prayed that he would be OK. My father and mother took Mark to either San Jose or San Francisco to a hospital in which they were prepared to surgically extract the pebble from his lung. However, shortly before the procedure was to take place the nurse went in to check on Mark and found a pebble beside him on the bed. X-rays confirmed that it was the pebble that he had breathed into his lungs and he was discharged and returned home, none the worse for wear.

Joyce was always the children’s advocate with my father about what the children wanted from them. I remember that one year, I got a brand-new bicycle to help with my paper route and it was a top-of-the-line bike with three speed gears and it was very fast road bike compared to other bikes I had known. I rode it for many years while doing the paper route as well as adventures to neighborhoods nearby and for long rides in the country. On another occasion, I had asked for a trampoline. At the time, trampolines were not as accessible or usual as a Christmas gift as they are now. Nevertheless, one Christmas morning I woke up to find a trampoline under the Christmas tree. Another time I got a Bongo Board which is a 3 inch thick, round foot-long column of wood with a grove going through the middle of it and a flat board that had a 1” x 1” board screwed into the bottom lengthwise. A person put the flat board on the beam and tried to balance as the weight shifted from end to end. It was a challenge to learn how to sustain a horizontal position on the Bongo Board and it took practice to become proficient. Over time, I was able to become efficient at keeping my balance for sustained periods of time, but my father upstage me on the Bongo Board twice.

On one occasion, because he had delayed preparing a speech for the Optimists or another service club, he improvised at the last minute by practicing on the Bongo Board for a while and then took the Bongo Board to the speech contest, and while balancing on the Bongo Board quoted the poem Gunga Din. As a result of this unique speech, he won the speech contest along with an increased amount of respect and amusement from his peers.

On another occasion, my mother was entertaining a very distinguished piano maestro from Carmel for a piano lesson. My father, when driving to our home during the day, and having seen the car of the piano maestro outside assumed it was a family friend. He went unnoticed into the house; found the Bongo Board went around the house to the front door which was close to the piano. He rang the doorbell and then got on the Bongo Board while my mother ran to answer the door. There my father was balancing on the Bongo Board and hit his head on the porch beam and laughing while doing this. My mother had to introduce my dad to her distinguished piano maestro by saying. This is my husband, Dr. Earl Hafen. She was embarrassed, but his reputation flourished among his admirers including me.

I remember that my mother was always supportive in my efforts both academically and athletically. I was short and thin and hyperactive in Junior High and was able to compete against younger kids in the Junior High in track. She allowed me to stay late for workouts and to practice and participate in the events while helping with my paper route. She supported me in the Boy Scouts, although I didn’t go very far. She allowed me to become a lifeguard at the city pool and supported me as a lifeguard at Correl de Tierra County Club. In those jobs I had to work some Sundays, but my parents allowed me to make my choice.

She drove my sister, Alyson, and me to seminary from North Salinas to the downtown Chapel on Iverson Street in Salinas and then back in time for swimming workouts at North Salinas High School before classes started. D

ue to the close-knit nature of the Welker sisters, some very outstanding family reunions were held with the sisters and their families in Idaho, Carmel, Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe. Somewhere we have some very nice 8mm home movies that display these experiences. On one occasion my mother orchestrated and oversaw a family reunion to Asilomar near Carmel, California that included 60 or 70 relatives on her side of the family. It was her show all the way and was one of the highlights of my life. My mother also surprised my sister Alyson and me with a trip to Twin Falls, Idaho over semester break for a weeklong ski trip with the Babbels. We got to visit with them and skied several days in the local mountains and then Sun Valley also.

At 18 years of age, after having served for a long time as a home bound dishwasher, I chose to rebel and said defiantly that I would never do another dishes job. I guess I felt justified in that rebellion, having done it since about the age of 12 along with other household chores such as mowing the lawns and cleaning out the garage and so forth. However my parents allowed me this small rebellion for which I have been grateful.

After I left home to go to school, I discovered that my mother was a physical education major in college and taught gymnastics and fencing in high schools. She was always surprising my wife and me with her physical abilities. For example when she was 48 years of age she visited us in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada. We lived on a lakefront property in the downstairs apartment next to a very cold Lake Ontario. The fact is it was too cold for me to get anything other than my feet wet but not for my mother. She went out and floated and swam in the lake that winter showing that she was heartier at that age than I was. Later, in that same trip, we went to visit Niagara Falls. And part of that trip, we went down a steep incline from the road through a little gorge to the river. Then, we turned around to climb back up. On this occasion my mother led the way and beat my wife and me up this steep gorge handily.

Mom and dad supported me on my mission to Ireland with frequent encouraging and newsy letters from home. On one occasion she sent some very expensive brogue-type shoes after I requested new shoes due to my perception that the Irish offerings in footwear were substandard. These were very nice shoes. However unfortunately my feet had increased in size due to the foot traffic required of missionaries, and the shoes were too small. But, I wore them anyway and suffered from ingrown toenails as a result.

My mother worked in a travel agency, part-time, for a while. While there, she came across a promotional deal by Air France to allow people to go to the Club Med in Tahiti. She purchased a two week stay for my brother and me. We both found that to be a wonderful vacation. We got to scuba, water-ski, snorkel, horseback ride and a variety of other athletic events. We received three meals a day, plus nightly entertainment as part of the same package and it was a wonderful vacation. On a side note, my brother, Mark, had shipped his surfboard from California to be made available for him to use in Tahiti. Mark was an accomplished surfer who had heard that there were “good waves” available in this island paradise. However, when we disembarked from the plane and went to claim our luggage, his surfboard was not there. So halfway through our two-week vacation, my brother decided that he would go and travel around Tahiti and Moria and look for his surfboard and for some good surfing. I understand that he borrowed a surfboard, slept in churches and on the beach and was able to live off the land and the generosity of the people. When it came time for us to board the plane back to California, I arrived early enough to save us a seat and waited for his return. With about three minutes left before the plane was to take off my brother showed up, much to my relief, when I accosted him about the thoughtlessness of making me worry so much, he frankly said “Uni-Pa-Pa” in a flippant way, which I came to believe, was Tahitian to mean “don’t worry.”

In December, 1969, Paulette and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple. My parents attended the wedding and participated in the Utah reception, and diner, arranged by Paulette’s cousin’s family. Later, in Salinas, mother hosted a very large wedding reception at the newly finished North Salinas Chapel. We were the first marital couple to have the opportunity to use that Chapel. My mother had been very active in the Mormon church all of her life and in particular in the Salinas area. Even though this was a new chapel in North Salinas, many family friends who lived on the other side of town as well as family from both parents side attended due to their appreciation for my mom and dad.

My parents helped me pay for the five years I spent at BYU getting a Bachelors and Masters degree and then followed that with several years of help financially at the University of Ottawa. While in Ottawa I had surgery for Crohn’s disease and had to spend five weeks in the hospital. Prior to the surgery, I was surprised to see my mom and dad in the hallway outside my hotel room. I broke into tears. They allowed me to regain my composure and then came in and visited and they were such a welcome sight. They stayed for a few days and met with their grandchildren. I appreciated the sacrifice of their time and expense.

My parents provided me with my first three cars. Prior to my mission I had a green Mercury. Upon return from my mission they provided me with a blue and white Ford Fairlane. And then as a gift shortly after our marriage they bought a Plymouth Barracuda that was a wedding gift and we drove that into the ground in the harsh winters and humid summers of Ontario Canada.

My mother always was involved in public service. She was in the PTA and possibly a president or other officer. She also maintained activity in the Republican Party and I remember her talking with friends at home and on the phone about plans they were going to have to support these two organizations.

At 93, my mother is now quite close to being infirm and dependent upon my sister, Alyson. However she has lived a long, selfless and useful life. She was Relief Society President five times. She went on a mission as a single senior citizen to Southern Texas near Houston in Sugarland at about 83 years of age. She has had the joy of seeing her four children married and has been surrounded with several grandchildren and about 16 great grandchildren at the time this tribute is dictated.

The downside of having lived a long and useful life has been that my mother has witnessed the deaths of her husband Earl at 62 years of age of prostate cancer; her daughter, Marrilee Kim Hafen at about 35 years of age due to breast cancer; her grandson, Tayler Matthew Hafen, just short of 14 years of age to leukemia. In addition her second son, Mark, was tragically killed on September 1, 2010. Six of her seven sisters have passed away with their spouses as well as all but two of Earl’s siblings. And Joyce has been grieved by the passing of many other relatives and friends on both sides of the family.

My father was a very astute businessman in addition to being a very productive veterinarian. He and a business partner bought two large apartment blocks close to our home in Salinas which provided them with an income stream until they sold those apartments. Also my father bought several homes in and around Salinas as rental properties which provided my mother with an income stream from the rentals as well as when they were sold. As far as I know the home on Laurel was paid for long before my mother moved from it to her new property which was on Meadow Ridge Road in North Salinas. Currently she lives with her daughter, Alyson, in Parker, Colorado in a home that she was able to pay for from proceeds of the investments my father provided her.

She is a true saint and has been a great example of all the saintly virtues. She has had many friends and admirers who have told me about their love for and trust of and regard for her on multiple occasions. She is unselfish in so many ways to not only her children but to many, many people. She is a grand lady. We are fortunate to part of her family.

• Residence: Paris, Bear Lake, Idaho, United States - 1930
• Residence: St. George, St. George Election Precinct, Washington, Utah, United States - 1940