Pleasant Hill, TN - Joyce E. Baur, 97, passed away on Oct. 30, 2025 in Pleasant Hill. A memorial will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 21, 2026, at the Pleasant Hill Community Church.

Mrs. Baur was born in Perkasie, PA, on Oct. 13, 1928, the daughter of Abram Nyce Derstine and Ruth Hedrick (Landis) Derstine. She graduated from high school in Pottstown, PA, and went on to get a bachelor's degree from Ursinus College and a Masters in religious education from Eden Seminary, where she met her husband, William F. Baur.

With her husband, Bill, she served as a missionary to Honduras of the Evangelical and Reformed Church for eight years in the 1950s. From Honduras, the Baurs moved to the Missionary Orientation Center in Stony Point, NY, where Joyce managed the center's library. In 1966, the Baurs became missionaries to India with the United Church of Christ. There, Mrs. Baur taught in the nursing school of the hospital in Tilda, Madhya Pradesh, where her husband was business manager.

In 1975, after returning from India, Mrs. Baur earned a Masters degree in library science from Drexel University. For nearly 20 years she was a head librarian for the public libraries in Jenkintown and then Elkins Park, both in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia.

The Baurs moved to Pleasant Hill and became members of Uplands Village in 1995. Mrs. Baur served as a member of the Uplands Long Range Planning Committee, Pleasant Hill Historical Society, the Pleasant Hill Child Enrichment Center and the Pleasant Hill Community Church Library Committee, the last being particularly close to her heart and passion and which she continued to do until 2018.

She served three terms as president of the Arts Circle Friends of the Library in Crossville and participated in the effort to build the new library in Crossville which opened in 2010. She also served as secretary and Caney Fork Regional Representative for Friends of Tennessee Libraries. She served ably as program committee chair for and was responsible for starting a successful book and author luncheon. In 2014, she published a book, "Off the Library Shelf," a collection of book reviews.

Mrs. Baur is survived by son, Mark C. (Sadaf Syeda) Baur of Brooklyn Park, MN; daughter, Deborah R. Baur of Valencia, CA; three grandchildren, Adrian, Ishmael and Isaac Baur, and two step-grandchildren, Shayla Kehoe and Sean Borpujari; and five step-great-grandchildren.