Obituary of Joanna Butcher

Shreveport, LA-Joanna Van Smith Butcher was born January 28, 1910 in Muskogee, Oklahoma and passed away June 11, 2005 in Shreveport, Louisiana. She was active in the Shreveport Junior League (Sustainers Book Club), Opera, Symphony, Little Theatre, Red Cross, Lighthouse for the Blind, and was an original organizer of the Holy Cross Episcopal Church (1951) and the annual soup days and bazaar. Mrs. Butcher attended the University of Minnesota where she was a member of Kappa Gamma Sorority and studied at Mary C. Wheeler School for girls in Providence, Rhode Island. Her late husband was a city editor for the Shreveport Times prior to his founding of Robert K. Butcher and Associates, Inc. with branch offices in Little Rock and Baton Rouge. Her father, known as Van Smith, was a civil engineer with the Dawes Commission and came to the Indian Territory as a surveyor , as well as, an investor in oil and gas with Joanna's late uncle, T. Carl Simmons of Tulsa, OK. Mrs. Joanna Butcher was preceded in death by her parents, Hurxthal Van Valzah Smith his wife Marie Simmons Smith and her brother-in-law, Harold Butcher and his wife Janet. She is survived by two sons, Phillip Hurxthal Butcher, John Kimberlin Butcher and his wife Kay, two granddaughters, Susan Barnett and Kathryn Coleman of Memphis, TN and numerous cousins in Red Wing, MN, where her maternal grandparents T.K. and Johanna Simmons born in Norway and Sweden, resided. A memorial service will be held at Holy Cross Episcopal Church, with interment at the Rose Garden on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 at 2:00 PM. The family expresses gratitude for loyal friends, Ruby Merritt, Annie Rogers and the late Tobey Lyles. Memorials may be made to Holy Cross Episcopal Church or a charity of ones choice. Boone Funeral Home Bossier 742-5361