Joanne

I learned Saturday that Joanne Noragon from Cup On The Bus finally succumbed to something she could not recover from through sheer determination and stubbornness. The previous Wednesday, her daughter Beth had posted an update on Joanne’s blog that her mom had finally met her match. It took her quickly. The last year or so, Joanne has only posted twice, recovering from a broken bone and then another spending months in rehab.  If you were a visitor to her blog you know what an amazing woman she was; strong, tough, determined, politically active, constantly engaged with life; and how much physical trauma she suffered, from chronic pain to a series of broken bones to a severe head injury, and recovered from over her lifetime. She was not one to let things like that control her destiny and true to that she made the choice, at 83, not to fight a battle that could not be won.

I don’t remember how I found Joanne’s blog but I’ve been visiting her at least since December 2011. At the time she was working for the township in which she lived in Ohio. Earlier in her life she was a self employed artist/artisan with her sister Jan weaving cloth and making garments from it. The two of them traveled all over doing shows until it was time to find other ways of living. There came a point when Joanne felt it necessary to gain custody of three of her grandchildren and that was the focus of her life, getting them through school and prepared for life as an adult. In the spring of 2018 when the last grandchild was still under her care she and Laura did a road trip, eventually making their way down here to the Texas Gulf Coast Plains and me. You can read about that visit here if you are interested.  Meeting Joanne was like getting together with an old friend whom you haven’t seen in years.

Joanne was weaving again in 2015 making garments for a small gallery (forgive me if I don’t have the chronology quite right, I’ve been scouring her archives jumping around so I may not have it exactly right) but the gallery closed (I think) and at some point she gave away her entire weaving studio. Three years later in 2018 she desired to weave again and got back one of her looms and began weaving dish towels just for the enjoyment of it and gifted myself and others with her efforts. When people realized she was giving them away demand grew and she stocked up on an array of colors and opened her online shop. I purchased several more for my self (I have 7) and for my grandgirls and you had to be fast because they sold out quickly. 

One day, after she posted a picture of a garment she had made back when that never sold and I commented how much I liked it, I received a package in the mail and inside was the blouse.

Joanne was a force of nature who overcame more adversity than most of us experience, someone I admired and considered a role model. She will be remembered and missed.

Fly high Joanne. Return to the stardust from whence you came.