It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of the loss of our precious Mother on August 14, 2022.
Joan Thayer was born in Ponca City, Oklahoma on June 15th, 1932 to William and Vivian Deverick. Joan left us on a beautiful cool rainy day, like her favorite days spent with the family in the mountains at Mormon Lake.
If you were lucky enough to have met her you know that she was a force of nature and willing to take on any challenge. From transforming an abandoned hunt club into a family retreat in the mountains, a hotel in Pinetop, to converting the Shadows at King’s Ranch into an Elderhostel that welcomed people from around the world to learn of her precious Arizona. She was most proud of her place in the RV industry here in Arizona when she and her husband at the time Ron Thayer built the first true luxury RV Resort
“Val Vista Village” while running a family farming business along the citrus corridor in Mesa. She and Ron went their ways but both continued to grow and develop the RV Resort industry in Mesa into what it is today.
From an early age Joan became an integral part of her community. Growing up in Ojai California, she met many prestigious people and was invited into their circles, but she never left who she was in that small town girl who would ride on the handlebars of her neighbor’s bicycle to church. At 27 she found herself practically running a large construction and development company in the San Joaquin Valley in California when she would be picked up each work day and flown over the largest privately owned parcel of land known as Santiago Ranch documenting the coordinates and numbering parcels of land into record books that are still used today.
It was her family and her wonderful home that she took most pride in. Up until the day she left her children, their friends, and anyone who came to visit would tell you that coming into Joan’s home is like entering a peaceful refuge taking your cares away. Whenever the kids were sick even as adults would “go to mom’s house” and immediately feel better. Joan loved her children and considered some of their friends her children as well, and when those friends would move in to “the ranch” they really did become her children too.
Her son Mark predeceased her in 1985, but they are together now and looking down on all of us. Her children Jeffrey, Sean, Lisa, Alison, and Ron Jr. who collectively gave her 9 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren survive her. A sister Lenora Jeanne Prewitt of North Carolina also survives Joan.
She was deeply loved and will be forever missed by her children and so many who had the chance to meet her. She flies high tonight and lands in the arms of the angels as her precious Mark meets her in heaven. We will see you again Mom, rest easy.
Services for Joan will be held on Thursday August 25th, 2022 at 2:00PM at Mountain View Funeral Home and Cemetery, 7900 E Main Street Mesa, AZ 85207.
Gramma.. I love you!!! I will never forget the days you would pick me up and we would go to shantytown!! In the big green booger!! I’m going to miss you something fierce!!! Rest easy Gramma!! And fly high!!!