oan A. (Van Nimwegen) Simpson, 80, of Hoover, Ala., died Feb. 28, 2006.

Joan A. Van Nimwegen was born Nov. 20, 1925, in Merrill. She was a 1943 graduate of Le Mars High School.

She moved to Birmingham, Ala., from California where she had been an executive secretary in the aerospace field. She was a former member of the Boards of the Shelby County Attention Home, Shelby County Hospital, Birmingham Aero Club and Southern Museum of Flight.

She will be missed by her numerous friends, whose lives she touched with her wonderful humor, her cheerfulness and abundant concern.

Survivors include her daughter, Barbara Jenkins, and grandson, Richard, both from Gresham, Ore.; a sister-in-law, Sula Potter of Spokane, Wash.; two great-grandsons; three nieces and two nephews.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Dick.