Joan Meyer, surrounded by flowers and escorted to her gravesite by the same police force that may have had a hand in her death, was honored by her community in a Saturday service.
“Joan was the epitome of knowing ‘small town’ does not have to mean ‘small mind,’ ” said the Rev. Ron DeVore. “She knew everybody in the community of the county.”
Meyer, the 98-year-old co-owner of the local newspaper, died a day after law enforcement raided her home, where she lived with her son, Marion County Record publisher Eric Meyer.
Her son believes the stress of the unprecedented Aug. 11 raid on her home and the newsroom was a contributing factor in her death. Marion police seized computers, reporters’ cellphones and materials from the newspaper office and Meyer’s home as part of an investigation into alleged identity theft of a restaurant operator, Kari Newell.
“She just sat most of the evening, you know, ‘Where are all the good people? Where are all the good people and how come they haven’t done something about this. Why are they allowed to do this?’ ” Eric Meyer said in a PBS interview. “So the last 24 hours of a 98-year-old woman’s life was devoted to pain and anguish, and a feeling that all her life didn’t matter.”
She couldn’t eat or sleep after the raid. A day later, she died in the home she had lived in since 1953, the day before Eric Meyer was born.
Eric Meyer said the first police officers arriving at their house during the raid were nice, but when they made their way through the house, his mother became concerned. They took pictures of her son’s personal bank records and other documents.
Eric Meyer said he tried to comfort her before she died by telling her bullies would get their comeuppance.
“I was trying to cheer her up,” Eric Meyer said in an interview with Kansas Reflector after the funeral service. “Her response to that, about an hour before she died, was, ‘Yeah and I won’t live to see it.’ ”
Rowena Plett, a 28-year veteran of the paper, came Saturday to show her respect to Joan Meyer, who she said had been an ever-vigilant speller and editor.
Plett said the paper’s situation was still uncertain.
“We’re kind of up in the air, nothing finalized,” Plett said. “It’s brought a lot of attention to our little town and our newspaper.”
But Saturday was a celebration of Joan Meyer’s life, not a lament for her harrowing final hours.
A lifelong Marion resident, she spent her life in community engagement.
She began her 50 years of working at the newspaper in the 1960s, joining her husband, Bill, after Eric was old enough to attend school. Bill, whom she married in 1949, had joined the then-called Marion Record-Review in 1948.
She spent almost four decades as the community news editor. When Bill retired in 2005, Joan kept working, although she took a step back after Bill died in 2006. Even after she retired, she listened to a police scanner in her house.
After her retirement, she published a weekly column called “Memories” and still was active in newspaper functions.
“That’s what Joan said newspapers should do, is not tell you what to think but give you the grist for the mill and urge you to think, to consume,” DeVore said to the 60 or so people gathered at the Valley United Methodist Church.
While she left a long legacy at the paper, Eric Meyer said one of his most vivid memories was how she would pitch for him and the other neighborhood children in their games of pick-up baseball, since none of them could throw well.
“It was kind of unusual in those days, because all the other mothers had their aprons on and were back in the kitchen doing something and she was out pitching for us,” Eric Meyer said. “I remember that.”
Eric Meyer said they both knew she would have to pass on sooner or later. A few months before her death, she picked out her funeral outfit, showing him where she had arranged it in her closet so he could easily find it. But then she reorganized her closet, he said, smiling.
Ultimately, Eric Meyer said, she would have been happy with the public outpouring of support in the days since the raid.
“Her last 24 hours were terrible,” he said. “But her death brought some attention to this and brought some positive response to it. I think she would feel very vindicated.”
“Her death had meaning,” he added. “Her life had meaning. She was worried before that her life hadn’t had meaning, and I think now it comes back that her life did have meaning.”
The congregation sang hymns such as “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” during the almost-hourlong service.
As people filtered outside of the church to head to the gravesite, the Record’s newspaper van pulled up, ready to lead the funeral escort.
Just a little down the street, a Marion County police car parked opposite Kari’s Kitchen — which is just steps away from the church — waited to start the procession. The police officer inside stared straight ahead, not looking at the little group of reporters filming the church.
Then everyone got into their cars, the police car set off, and the procession pulled away.
This story was originally published by the Kansas Reflector.
