Joan Stephenson

Joan Johnson Stephenson died Nov. 30, 2018, five days before her 94th birthday in Venice, Florida, where she lived the last years of her life near her daughter, Pam.

She was born Dec. 5, 1924, to Joseph E. and Irene Toney Johnson in Huntington, West Virginia. She graduated from Marshall College in 1946. That year, she and her sister, Emily, moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where she began a 40 year teaching career and met her soon to be husband, Thomas Giffe Stephenson.

They married June 5, 1948, and in 1951 moved to El Paso, Texas, where she taught first grade next door to her mother at Rusk School. In 1966, she moved to St. Louis where she taught first grade at Claymont School in the Parkway school district. She earned a master's degree in elementary education from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri.

She and Tom celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary before he died in 2016. Her daughter Deborah Giffe Stephenson Graham died in 2014.

Joan is survived by her daughter Pamela Joan Stephenson Johnson of Venice, Florida; grandsons Dr. Giffe T. Johnson of Sarasota, Florida, Wallace Malcolm Graham, William Thomas Graham and James E. Graham Jr.; and granddaughter Katherine Graham Ayers; their spouses, and son-in-law the Rev. James Graham all of Memphis, Tennessee; nine great-grandchildren; and her sister Emily Colegrove of Sun City, Arizona.

A graveside service will be held Friday, Dec. 28, 2018, at 11 a.m. in the Green Park Cemetery Chapel where she will be buried next to her husband. Tom's family were early settlers in Jay County, the Stephensons having moved here from Ohio in 1852, the Giffes arriving in 1849 and the Weists arriving before 1886. The Stephensons moved to Ohio from West Virginia, where, ironically, they lived in the same county where Joan's ancestors lived in for many generations.

Baird-Freeman Funeral Home is in charge of local arrangements.

Condolences will be expressed at bairdfreeman.com.