Loving wife, mother and grandmother, Izola Ray Yvonne Starke, passed away peacefully on February 1, 2023 at the age of 96 in Lakewood, Colorado. Born in Rustenburg, South Africa on July 10, 1926 to Louis Starke and Dorothea Hugo Starke, she was the eldest of four children.
She and her siblings spent most of their childhood in a chromium mining compound in Reighoek, outside of Rustenburg, where her father started up a general store after the war. After high school, she found her way first to Rhodesia and then to London in 1952 where she worked for the British postal system to help fund her travels throughout Europe. She always said one of the highlights of her time there was being in London for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. Upon returning home to Rustenburg in 1953, she serendipitously met her future husband and love of her life, Byrd Berman, an American geologist, temporarily working at the mining site who had become friends with her parents and become their 4th bridge hand.
Izola and Byrd, who was from Moline, Illinois, were married in 1954 in Rustenburg and then moved to the U.S. eventually settling in Lakewood in 1966. Izola was active in her church, HOA and city politics and worked in retail for 30 years until she was 80! Izola loved her family, traveling, music, bridge, reading and gardening. She will always be remembered for her strength of character, resoluteness, never taking flack, quick retorts and great sense of humor as well as her accent which she never lost even after almost 60 years.
She is survived by her three children: Beverly Berman and her husband Jeff Backerman of Concord, MA, Byrd Starke Berman of Lakewood and Helen Berman of Zambia, her granddaughter Lauren Backerman and her brother Ivor Starke and his wife Jeanette of South Africa.
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