Irene Mary (Janyssek) Barker

Irene Mary Janyssek Barker, 102, died Tuesday, July 8, 2025 in Austin, Texas.

A funeral mass will be held 10:00 AM, Saturday, October 25, 2025, at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Yorktown, Texas. Interment will follow at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery.

Born in Yorktown, Texas, on October 31, 1922, in the midst of the Roaring Twenties, Irene Janyssek was the second daughter of the late Joseph Janyssek and Susie Kolodziej Janyssek. She graduated from Yorktown High School in 1940 during World War II and worked as a telephone operator in San Antonio before marrying U.S. Army officer Joseph Jefferson Beaman in 1946. She spent the next years as an Army officer's wife and mother of two, moving every few years to new posts in South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Illinois and overseas in Japan and France. When her husband retired from the Army in 1963, they moved to a more permanent residence in Marshall, Texas. Divorced in 1983, she subsequently married George Edward Barker in 1987, and they made their home in Marshall until his death in 2014. She continued to live in Marshall until 2019, when she moved into assisted living in Austin.

Irene was a dedicated artist and an accomplished bridge player, belonging to several art organizations and bridge clubs throughout her life. During her years in Marshall, she was a member of St. Joseph Catholic Church and a devoted Catholic, no matter where she lived. She loved her family, friends and art.

Surviving are her daughter, Theresa Ann Burkes and husband Don Lewis Burkes, of McCall, Idaho; her son, Joseph (Joe) Jefferson Beaman Jr. and wife Lisa Trottier Beaman of Austin, Texas; three granddaughters, Carol Mokwa, Rachel Bonilla, and Lily Beaman; three grandsons, Justin, Charles and Clark Beaman; and nine great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her husband George Edward Barker and her siblings, Alphonse Janyssek, Eleanor Hargis and Mary Esther Olsen.

We thank Joe and Lisa Beaman for their sacrifice and for all the hours spent caring for our mother in the final years of her life.

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