LITTLE ROCK — For more than 20 years, Joanie Tiefel was busy spreading love, one professionally-printed “hug card” at a time.
“It has two bears hugging on it and on the side it says ‘Free hug. Please redeem this coupon from any participating human being,’” said her daughter, Jane Tiefel. “She’d always say no matter what everybody needs a hug.”
Tiefel died Saturday at Arkansas Hospice in Little Rock from cancer.
She was 76.
In 1958, Tiefel began teaching English and business courses at an Indiana high school. Her time teaching was brief, because she and her husband, Tom Tiefel, were expecting their first child.
“You had to quit teaching when you began to show, when you’re pregnant,” said her daughter, Mary Beth Cox. “She would laugh and say she had to literally wear a girdle the last couple of weeks she taught.”
In addition to being a full-time mother to her three children, Tiefel stayed active, whether it was serving in the Parent Teacher Association or as a Cub Scout leader.
“She was always fair, always saw the best in you,” Jane Tiefel said. “So when you were having the toughest day, she’d always say, ‘Lets talk about the good things that happened today.’ She’d always turn it around.”
Her positivity made her a beloved substitute teacher for more than 10 years in the North Little Rock School District.
“She used humor with her lessons,” Cox said. “She always had an anecdote or story that would break the ice.”
Tiefel’s knack for relating to people led to success as a volunteer motivational speaker throughout Arkansas and the United States. She focused on three main topics: angels, laughter and self-esteem.
“She loved to talk about angels and how they work in people’s lives and what they do for people,” Jane Tiefel said. “She really saw an opportunity at nursing homes and where people were down and out [to say], ‘There are angels watching over you.’”
Despite being a lifelong member of Weight Watchers and losing 100 pounds, Tiefel still always said, “That’s how you get to know people, over a cookie.”
Ever the optimist, Tiefel called herself “fluffy” because “she never liked the word fat,” Jane Tiefel said.
It was the simple, compassionate things Tiefel did for others that made her unique - giving soda to the garbage man every week, passing out homemade sour cream coffee cakes at Christmas and writing 15 to 20 notes a week to people to make them smile, her daughters said.
Even grocery shopping was a social outing, as she affectionately referred to the Kroger at 2509 McCain Blvd. in North Little Rock as “My Kroger,” Jane Tiefel said.
“She had trouble walking, so she rode in one of the carts,” Jane Tiefel said. “She would admit herself she was not a super-good driver. Whenever she’d bump into something she’d say, ‘Whoopsie.’ [The employees] started calling her whoopsie.”
In spite of the grief throughout the past two years with the deaths of her son and husband and being diagnosed again with cancer, Tiefel took to heart the phrase she used to uplift people - “Ta-Dah.”
“When we go ‘Ta-Dah’ and stretch our arms out wide, we are proud of who we are and we are embracing life,” Tiefel wrote and would say to a crowd. “We are thankful for just being here today. We are not worrying about the past and goodness knows we have absolutely no control over the future.”
Arkansas, Pages 8 on 01/15/2013