Joan Bowers Woodward's Obituary
Joan B. Woodward (neè Bowers and pronounced “Jo Ann”) passed away peacefully on July 30, 2019.She was born in Toledo, Ohio on April 17, 1922. Her father Charles H. Bowers, an engineer, and her mother Ethel raised Joan and her older brother Charles in Toledo in an avid sailing family, an avocation she enjoyed throughout her life. She met her husband Charles H. Woodward at DeVilbiss High School in Toledo. Joan went on to study at the University of Toledo where she earned a degree in education.
They married in 1946 after “Chuck,” as she called him, returned from the war. A military wife who raised 5 children, Joan followed her husband to postings in Dayton (OH), Baltimore (MD), Montgomery (AL), Englewood (CA) and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. After Chuck’s retirement from the Air Force, he began a career at New York Life while the family lived adjacent to George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, VA. After Chuck retired from New York Life, he and Joan moved to Hilton Head Island where Joan
successfully ran the Bargain Box, a prominent local charity. They later built a new home in Venice (FL). Following Chuck’s death in 2001, Joan bought a condo in Dunedin (FL) and actively joined in the social
life of Edgewater Arms. She is survived by her four sons, Charles Stephen (“Steve”), Timothy Allen, Jeffrey Lee (her caregiver for
the last 4 years) and John David. Joan’s only daughter, Anne Elizabeth, was killed in a car accident in 1986. Joan had three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Following a graveside service, Joan will be interred next to daughter and her husband of 55 years at Mount Comfort Cemetery in Alexandria, VA
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