Joni was destined to become a storyteller.
Joni is a storyteller at heart; the child her mother could count on to come home from school and tell everything that had happened throughout the day.
The first sign in Joni’s life that her calling was to be a storyteller, came when she was four-years-old.
When Joni moved with her parents out-of-state, far away from all extended family members, her Aunt Virgie gifted a turquoise reel-to-reel recorder. Aunt Virgie would send recordings of herself reading Bible stories for Joni to listen, learn, and fall in love with. Joni’s father, in return, would make recordings of Joni telling stories to send to Aunt Virgie. And thus, Joni’s storytelling days began.
Over the years, Joni’s storytelling evolved into telling God stories.
When Joni was five-years-old, she and her family returned to Indiana to be near to family again. They spent a year living with her grandmother, a godly, woman. Joni was her shadow and followed her everywhere.
They would pick strawberries together, snap green beans, cut flowers, and gather eggs from the henhouse. As much fun as these things were to do, Joni’s favorite thing was going to church with her grandmother.
As a teen Joni came to the realization she couldn’t get to heaven by holding onto her grandmother’s apron strings and she made the decision to accept Jesus Christ her personal Lord and Savior.
Over the years, Joni’s storytelling evolved into telling God stories and the things He has done. From an early age, Joni was set up to be set apart to go and tell the greatest story ever told–His Story.
​Married to her high-school sweetheart…
Joni and Tom have been married for over forty years. They live on the west side of Indianapolis, have two married sons, and six grandchildren.
Joni calls herself a happy wife, grateful mom, proud grandmother, enthusiastic storyteller, novice quilter, compulsive researcher, vivid dreamer, incompetent blogger, creative crafter, puppet maker, nervous traveler, gingerbread collector, and author and storyteller of The Immanuel Quilt.
Check out their Life of Love story.