Growing up in the Midwest, Joyce D. Sohl learned several important lessons: Think for yourself. Accept all. Always try to do your best. Prepare to be able to support yourself.
Those values would serve her well later in life as a pioneer for women’s ministries in The United Methodist Church.
When Sohl was born in Aurora, Illinois, her dad, John F. Wichelt, was a student at Naperville’s Evangelical Theological Seminary, a predecessor of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. She and her late brother spent most of their childhood in Hastings and Lincoln, Nebraska, where the Rev. Wichelt was pastor of Hastings Evangelical Church and Lincoln First Evangelical United Brethren Church.
Sohl is grateful that her mom, Nellie Wichelt, was more progressive than some other parents of her day. Early on, her mother advocated neutral pronouns for God — a practice that gained more acceptance years later.
“Mother was a Christian educator,” she said. “She taught me that God as ‘father’ might not be a good image for all children and adults.”
A love of math and chemistry led Sohl to Westmar College in LeMars, Iowa.