Joan June Wichern

We are deeply sorry for your loss ~ Gunderson Funeral Home - Madison

As a little boy I had a crush both on Joan and Anita. They the cutest and nicest girls I had ever met! It was always a treat to stay on the farm with them.

Joan was a bonus fan at Jim's ballgames and became a team mom and friend to many of us. Joan was always friendly and never forgot your name. She once saved my bacon by having a functioning Zip Drive, allowing me to salvage some long dormant files. There'll be an empty seat in the stands and an empty space in our heart. RIP Joan.

Joan and I were close friends and next door neighbors for years. We both had family daycares . We both took classes and went to other events at night to get out of the house. One of the many classes we took together was one about how to interview for a job in case we ever decided to have a career after childcare. So there we were, two middle aged women in a class meant for college age students. I remember one class in which the young men sitting behind me asked what was one my sweater. Was it pigs? He asked. I should explain I had a variety of cute winter sweaters with snow scenes, and winter animals. I was sort of taken back and said no they were polar bears. Well Joan heard it all and didn't say anything about it. Although they were sort of making fun of my sweater. So the next week we were all in class again and Joan says to the young man and his friends, I was thinking about you boys and brought you each a pig sticker. She handed them each a pig sticker and said only they are not scratch and sniff! They looked pretty shocked. Joan I will love you forever, you had a wicked sense of humor.

The world has changed, forever, since November 17, 2025. Joan Wichern, the ultimate neighbor, mother, grandmother, friend, and priceless human being has departed for her most-deserving reward. She was the very first person I met when moving, almost directly across the street in 1977. She welcomed me to the neighborhood and to her small church within it. She immediately got my seven-year-old into their thriving Summer Bible School. Joan became my excellent, ever-available, babysitter for my two youngest sons. I lost just two years ago, another, amazingly wonderful, close friend, Betty Glover. I am realizing how many unique traits they possessed in common. Like Betty, Joan was best friend to everyone who knew her, most obliging and capable, a new level of selflessness, quirky sense of humor, always there in a crisis. And, most wonderful of all; neither ever realized how wonderful they were! Joan affected many lives. Many memories and associations may be bittersweet for a long time as her family, to which she was so uniquely bonded, finds solace in their all-encompassing Christian faith. Good-bye, Joan. God needs you now to invoke your same magic in Heaven. Nancy G.