Iona was born to the Thorvald Beck family 9-29-1931 a few minutes before her twin sister Norma at home in a rural area north of Salinas, CA and nine months before her future husband Barney.
Iona graduated mid-term in 1949 from Salinas Union High School. Later she went to work as a telephone operator where she worked with the Jones sisters that lived over Barney’s back fence. Iona started attending church with them which was the same church Barney attended when he was home from the USN.
Iona and Barney started dating April 1955 when they met after Barney got out of the USN and were married Sept. 4,1955. The newly weds moved to L.A. where Barney was attending school. In the mean time they had two daughters. They decided that was not the place to raise them and moved to Santa Barbara. Barney started working for UPS and his route eventually was in Goleta. After 10 years living in Santa Barbara they bought a home near DPHS where Iona started working in the DPHS cafeteria and our daughters attended.
In 1988 both Iona and her twin sister had operations that left them in a depressed state and slowly started to decline. Iona was able to live at home until 2002 until Barney was unable to care for her any longer. Iona then started living in assisted care homes for seven years. After seven years Iona needed nursing care and was moved to Senior Living Concepts which later became Alto Lucero Transitional Care. At each facility she had excellent care that kept Barney worry free. On February 13, 2019 Iona went to be with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and her twin sister that preceded her in heaven. A memorial service will be held March 9, 2019 2:00 PM at the Goleta Valley Church 595 North Fairview Ave Goleta, CA.
