Joan L. Boardman Gore, 88, formerly of Aberdeen, South Dakota, died in Bartlett, Tennessee, at 1:00 AM on January 2, 2022, of old age. She would have been 89 on Tuesday, January 4, 2022.
Joan was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, in 1933, to James and Kathleen Green Boardman. She grew up in England during World War II. She studied at Blackpool Technical College and School of Art.
She, met engineer Harry Gore, one of the “loud Leyland lads,” a group of soccer fans from a nearby industrial town, when she took a job with Jackson’s the Tailors in around 1951. She was 18 but he was 31 and, according to her friends, too old for her. Leyland Motors sent Harry to Canada in 1952. Joan and Harry married in 1956, after he returned. Matthew, their only child, was born in 1962 when they were “established.”
In 1968, Joan, with Matthew in tow, followed Harry from England to Aberdeen after Harry took a job with Safeguard Industries. The Aberdeen American News ran a story about the family shortly after their arrival. They became a part of Plymouth Congregational Church (UCC) where they made lifelong friends. Joan was recruited by Dorothea “Dorrie” Meline to the Overseas Club made up of women born outside the United States. Joan enjoyed the club and friends she made there tremendously.
Although they lived in Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Carolina, and Kentucky as well as South Dakota, Joan fell in love with Aberdeen. Harry always said he was, “chasing the dollars,” so Joan decided where they would retire. Aberdeen was Joan’s spiritual home town although she made good friends, often among British expats, wherever she lived.
Not long after Harry’s death in 2002, Joan moved to Bartlett, Tennessee, to live with Matthew and his wife Susan. There she joined Faith Cumberland Presbyterian Church and was an enthusiastic small group member. A consummate crafts person, scores of people were either gifted with her teddy bears and monkeys or bought them at fund raising events. Joan was thrilled with the delight they brought to children and sometimes adults. Over the years she made and gave away hundreds.
Joan is survived by Matthew H. Gore, editor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Magazine. Her daughter-in-law is Susan Knight Gore, Director and Archivist of the Historical Foundation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America. Granddaughter Allison Stallings (Jonathan) lives in Jasper, Indiana, with Joan’s great-grandson Holden Rodich.
In memory of Joan, donations can be made to Communications Ministry Team-Cumberland Presbyterian Church Center 8207 Traditional Place Memphis, TN 38016.
enthusiastic small group member.
