Joanne Alice (Edney) Watson
February 27, 1941 - July 10, 2025
Joanne Alice (Edney) Watson passed away peacefully at 84 years young on July 10, 2025 in the company of family at her longtime home in Shirley Massachusetts. Joanne was preceded in death by her parents Alice (Lomax) Edney and George Edney, and her husband Kenneth Gilbert Watson (June 21, 1936 - May 21, 2023), and two brothers George and Alfred Edney. Jo and Ken were married on August 21, 1961 and have five children who continue their legacy; Kenneth Watson, Gary Watson, Suzanne Perry, Kimberly Dube, and Debbie Thibeault. Jo is also survived by her sister Sari Rosman, as well as many grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Jo and Ken were a team and she was his partner in his travels for the Army whether they were stationed at Fort Devens here in Shirley Massachusetts or abroad in Germany or in Eritrea. She was the boisterous social butterfly to his calm and steady. For years she asked for a Siamese cat and her children would buy her figurines that now fill her house, until one year they pooled their money to buy her Abraham. She would continue to have a house with pets and passed her love of all creatures onto her children and grandchildren.
Jo was the matriarch of her family, raising not only her five children, but also being an active second mother to her many grandchildren and great grandchildren as well. She will be fondly remembered for taking her grandchildren for weeks during the summer, dinners of just strawberries or ice cream sundaes from Kimball’s. She remained active late into her life going kayaking throughout the region with her children and grandchildren whether it was a glassy flat lake or a swift whitewater river. Her house always had tea and often wine to share with family around the kitchen table.
She taught her children and grandchildren Episcopal prayers, but even with all the prayers in my memory none of them seem to quite fit, so instead I put you into a poem and let it be your prayer.
A Not So Little Legacy
By Lindsey Sarah Watson
You are comfort and prayer
You are strawberries, icecream, and Yorkshire pudding
You are pots of English breakfast tea and bottles of sweet wine
You are the winding river and bagpipes in the Scottish highlands
You lived fully and traveled far; Eritrea, Germany, Fort Devens, Michigan, Tennessee, England, Scotland, … the places were numerous
You are guiding us.
You are music and laughter
You are stacks of mail, stashes of tea, and hidden treasures
You are sassafras tea and Altoid mints
You are tiger lillies, lilacs, and a slate walkway
You carried many titles; daughter, wife, mother, nurse, grandmother, great grandmother, … too many to name
You are with us.