Ioa Marie Pickens Reese was born on May 29, 1920, in Chicago, IL to Reo Noble and Josephine W. (DeGroote) Pickens. She graduated from Proviso High School in Maywood, IL in the spring of 1938. She attended the Chicago YMCA College and the Purdue University College of Agriculture Horticulture option.

She married Kenneth E Reese on June 20, 1943 in Maywood, IL.

She worked switchboard and desk at Amlings in Chicago, answered Christmas problem letters at Montgomery Ward catalog office in Chicago, traced US Army soldiers and corrected the addresses on misdirected war bonds including checking file records for proper name and unit, but resigned rather than take downgrade as proposed at Pres. Truman’s inauguration. She started as secretary to several buyers and to one Catalog Division Sales Manager at Sears, Roebuck & Co. After an automobile accident, she worked as a typist for an Ingleside, IL Real Estate Agent. In her free time, she spent hours tending to her multitudes of plants and researching genealogy for her growing family tree.

Ioa and Kenneth were members of First Christian Church of Frankfort from summer of 1983 to shortly after Kenneth’s passing in October 2002. She was a member of First Christian Church of Downers Grove (Disciples of Christ), Clinton County Historical Society, Friends of the Frankfort Public Library, Clinton County Hospital Foundation, A Life Member of the Purdue Alumni Association, and of the National Association of Retired Federal Employees.

Visitation and Services

Memorial services will be 11 a.m. Friday, July 7, 2017 at the First Christian Church, 58 S. Columbia St., Frankfort, Ind. Burial will be in Green Lawn Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in Ioa’s name to: First Christian Church, 801 63rd Street, Downers Grove, IL 60516.

Survived by:

Survivors include a son, Robert (Gail) Reese, and granddaughters, Angela & Tamara Reese, a niece, Nancy Jordan, and her children, Elizabeth & David Jordan.

Preceded by:

her husband, Kenneth Reese, her parents, her sister, Bernice Pickens, her brother, Reo Pickens Jr., and grandson, Theodore Reese.