Joy Ellen (Yonker) Roush, 96, of Mason County, West Virginia died March 15, 2021 at Pleasant Valley Hospital in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. She was born in Mason County on March 30, 1924, the elder daughter of Robert Ray Yonker and Ora Fredericka Lieving, in the same house where she lived for most of her life, and on a farm that had been in her family for over a hundred years.

She attended Vernon School, a one-room schoolhouse, for eight years, then graduated from Wahama High School in 1942. As a young woman, she helped to raise her younger siblings, when their mother was seriously ill. She lived with her grandmother, Lovina Yonker Cullen, at New Haven, West Virginia, and worked in a grocery store.

On September 24, 1943, Joy married Jack Roush, the son of Dennis Asbury Roush and Lavada May Edwards, at Pomeroy, Ohio. Joy tended the home fires while Jack was serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. When he returned home after the war, they started their family, moving onto the Yonker farm on Broad Run about 1950. They raised four children, and tended a small farm, growing vegetables and raising cattle, while Jack worked as a locksmith and refrigeration repairman. He died in 2007.

Those who knew Joy will recall her as a kind, sweet, and loving person. She was nurturing, helpful, and selfless to a fault. Though never blessed with wealth, Joy lived by the principle of hospitality that she learned from her forebears: the simple, family-loving pioneer folk who settled this area two centuries ago. Her gentle spirit will be deeply missed, and her memory cherished, by all those whom she leaves behind.

Besides her husband and parents, Joy was predeceased by a son, Joseph Robert Roush, and adaughter, Arline Roush Thorn; brothers, George William and Sherwood Henry Yonker, and sister, Mabel Rosemary Yonker Henderson; sister-in-law Eva Lou Yonker, and brother-in-law Willard Henderson.

She is survived by a brother, Ray Yonker and wife Rhea, and stepsister Berneas Wood of
Pomeroy; sister-in-law Romona Yonker of Racine, Ohio; daughters Jacqueline Kiley and
husband Michael, of West Union, West Virginia, and Barbara Roush, of Mason County;
grandchildren Michael Kiley and wife Misty, Janice Marquez and husband Javier, Katherine Hager and husband Nathan, Laura Statler and husband Ben, all of Maryland, and Paul A. Thorn of Huntington, West Virginia; great-grandchildren Alejandra, Isabel, Javier, Jacalyn, and Joseph Marquez, and Chloë and Olivia Hager, and many beloved nieces, nephews, and cousins.

Service will be 1 p.m. Friday, March 19, 2021, at the Broad Run Lutheran Church, Letart, W.V with Pastor Randy Parsons officiating. Burial will follow in the Yonker-Lieving Cemetery (Cedar Hill) at Vernon, West Virginia. Visitation will be Thursday, March 18, 2021, from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. at the Foglesong Funeral Home, Mason, W.V.

Condolences may be shared with the family at www.foglesongfuneralhome.com