Phyllis Betty (Matthies) Jastram, 95, of Redfield, SD, passed away on Saturday, 11/12/2022, at Avera St. Luke’s Hospital in Aberdeen, SD.
Her services will be held on Saturday, 11/26/2022, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hartford, SD. Visitation will be from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m., with her funeral at 2:00 p.m. Burial will follow the service at the church cemetery. Reverend Nabil Nour will officiate. After the committal service, refreshments and fellowship will take place in the church hall.
The funeral service will be live-streamed to the funeral home’s website, below Phyllis’s obituary. Arrangements have been entrusted to Hyke Funeral Home in Redfield, SD (www.hykefuneralhome. com).
Phyllis was born in Sioux Falls, SD, on 9/23/1927, to Herbert Louis August and Bertha Mathilda K. (Muchow) Matthies, and was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hartford, SD, on 10/23/1927. She worked as a schoolteacher and then married Robert John Jastram at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hartford on 6/1/1947. When Robert graduated from the seminary, the family (now including Jonathan and Anita) moved to Japan where Robert served as a missionary. After language study in Tokyo, the family (now including David) moved to Shibata where they spent most of their twenty-three years in Japan. During that time, Daniel and Nathan were born, a strong church was established, and many friends were made through teaching classes about the Bible, English, and cooking. Three years were devoted to serving as dorm parents, primarily for missionary kids who came to Tokyo from all over Japan for high school.
Upon returning to the United States in 1976, they served churches in Gettysburg, SD, and Parkers Prairie, MN, where Phyllis was active in the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League, serving as zone president and district president. After retirement, they moved close to Fergus Falls, MN, into a self-built earth home, where many happy gatherings took place with the children and their families: Jonathan and wife Janet of Albuquerque, NM; Anita and husband Ronald Frankenstein of Redfield, SD; David (deceased) and wife Lisa of Houston, TX; Daniel and wife Joan of Tokyo, Japan; Nathan and wife Joanna of Mequon, WI. Phyllis cared for Robert during his last nine years of struggle with multiple system atrophy, ending in 2004. She moved to Redfield, SD, in 2017 to be closer to Anita, and after a series of operations, she entered into heaven on 11/12/2022. She is survived by her sister Geraldine Ruud and her brother Raymond Matthies.
