Barbara Joan Beck Hansen

We shall miss your bright eyes and sweet smile

For you take with you all of the sunshine

That has brightened our pathway a while

-James J Kerrigan

Our beloved Joan Hansen passed away on October 6, 2017. Born Barbara Joan Beck on January 19, 1936 in Racine, Wisconsin, to Elmer and Helen Cushman Beck, Joan was the youngest of three children.

She graduated from Prineville’s Cook County High School in 1954, and went on to attend the University of Oregon and Portland State University, earning a Masters degree in Social Work. Together, Joan and Herb Hansen lived a distinguished life of service to others in the field of social work and family services. Joan worked as a social worker for 30 years for such agencies as Multnomah County Public Welfare, Boys and Girls Aid Society, Waverly Children’s Home, Visiting Nurse Association, Inner City Parochial Schools, and Portland Public Schools Special Education. She was forced into early disability retirement due to blindness resulting from diabetic retinopathy.

Always a warrior, Joan did not let her difficult circumstances diminish her joy of life. She challenged herself by doing things that were “atypical for blind people” such as skiing and taking a class on the use of power tools for the blind. She continued doing volunteer work and served on the City of Portland Advisory Committee on Disabilities, and also on the Kaiser Permanente Patient Advisory Board, helping to train and educate health care providers regarding issues important for persons with disabilities and accessibility issues. When asked if it were difficult not to be able to see, Joan would always say, “I can still see. I just do it with my heart.”

Joan cherished her family and loved spending time together at the family beach cabin in Depoe Bay. She delighted in her two daughters and was smitten with her grandchildren. For both generations she attended everything from baseball games to ballet recitals and rock concerts in support of her family, and was always the friendliest and most enthusiastic face in the audience. Joan and Herb also took great pleasure in the arts and were avid supporters of the Portland Opera and the Oregon Symphony.

Joan was preceded in death by her brother Donn Beck of Portland, and is survived by her loving husband Herbert John Hansen; her daughters and sons-in-law, Karin Hansen and Tom Potter of Portland, and Marta Hansen Shely and William Shely of Tualatin; her grandchildren, Sophia and Evan Shely; and her brother and sister-in-law Robert and Marge Beck of Port Angeles, WA.

Joan’s family requests that should you wish, please participate in an act of kindness in her name and memory, so that Joan’s spirit of helping, loving, and giving to others will continue, and the beautiful light that she gave to the world will shine on.