Joan Knox Self's Obituary
Joan Delores Knox Self, born 9/22/1931: first child to Dwight F. Knox and Virginia R. Loper, in New London, CT—which was where the hospital was. Lived in Mystic, then Madison CT, and was witness to the final flight of the Hindenburg before it exploded on docking in NYC. Her mother drove her and her 2 sisters across the US on Route 66 in the summer of 1941, as they moved to L.A. to join her father who was working in the Long Beach ship yards. She remembered the black-out curtains and air raid drills after the Pearl Harbor attack. She had a horse that was bought from the US cavalry, which sold off its remaining horses at the start of WW2. She graduated in 1949 from Glendale High, and went to Glendale Junior College, and then UCLA, where she graduated in 1954 with a teaching degree. She had been active in the theater dept and turned down a Hollywood contract to marry William R. Self, a fellow UCLA student-ROTC Marines. Their honeymoon was driving across the country to his first posting in Quantico, VA and then Camp LaJeune, NC. They were then stationed at the US embassy in London from 1956-1958, and Joan taught at the American School. Due to her travels, she missed the weddings of her 2 sisters. After returning to the US and being stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA, they became parents of daughter Anne, and then son David 3 years later in Salt Lake City. Due to a service connected disability, Bill was honorably discharged as Captain, and the family moved several times for his job with Union Carbide: Tulsa, OK to Atlanta, GA, to Rochester, NY, and then finally Cedar Rapids, IA. In Cedar Rapids she was active in the Kenwood Park Presbyterian Church, and organized several years of “Christmas International House”—a program that reached out to international college students to house them with local hosts over the holidays. When Bill became too disabled to work, Joan returned to school and received her Masters of Social Work at the University of IA. She and Bill returned to his family home in Exeter, CA, and Joan worked for nearly 10 years with a CA state agency in Visalia that helped people re-enter the workforce. She became a widow in 1986, and then a grandmother in 1987 and 1993 of 2 grand-daughters. She retired from her job in Exeter and moved to Redondo Beach, CA to be closer to her daughter and 2 grand-daughters in 1995, but still continued to work as the Torrance, CA Unity Church secretary, until following her daughter to IA in 2001. (Daily Breeze) Her life in IA was busy with old friends and family, with her last 2 years spent at Melrose Meadows retirement apartments. Due to her failing health, she was moved to Memphis in 2012, again to be close to her daughter. She stated the focus of her life was always her family. She enjoyed many “Face-Time” and real-time visits with family during her last 10 months at the Baptist Reynolds Hospice House, and passed peacefully, after a 4.5 year battle with Multiple Myeloma, on 9/13/15. She is survived by her daughter Anne (Self) Sullivan of Memphis, TN and son David Self of Dallas, TX, along with son-in-law Michael Sullivan, and daughter-in-law Erika Navarro, along with 2 grand-daughters: Allison(Memphis , TN) and Shannon Sullivan (Coralville, IA); along with her 2 sisters: Barbara Joyce (husband Richard Joyce)of Seal Beach, CA and Judy White (husband Robert White)of Oceanside, CA, and sister-in-law Evelyn Folks, Palos Verdes Estates, CA, and brother-in-law Stanley Cosart of Exeter, CA and numerous nephews and 1 niece. She is preceded in death by her parents, husband, in-laws (David and Alice Bellamy) and one sister-in-law (Virginia Cosart) and one brother-in-law (Robert Folks). Memorial Service is planned for Tues Nov 24 at Cathedral Memorial Gardens, Garden Grove, CA. The family requests any donations be made to the Baptist Reynolds Hospice House.Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Memorial Park Funeral Home and Cemetery, 5668 Poplar Ave. Memphis, TN 38119, “Celebrating Life… Behind the Stone Wall”
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