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Joann Beth Garwood, 86, of Columbiana, Ohio, passed away May 25, 2021, in Leetonia, Ohio. She was born March 28, 1935, in Beloit, Ohio, daughter of Orville Burbick and Emma Brunner Burbick.
Upon the October 28, 2018 passing of her husband, Carl Ross Garwood, whom she married on March 28, 1952, Joann provided a summary of his life’s activities and achievements while at the same time reflecting on her own life. “There won’t be anything to write about me; I haven’t done anything.” We, her family, feel differently.
Joann was the Co-CEO, COO, CFO, Activities Director, Chief Strategist, Director of Potato Operations, General Farm Laborer, Counselor, Head Cook, Laundry Room Supervisor, and Chief Taxi Driver of High Hope Farms and the Garwood family. Joann changed an estimated 38,325 diapers and fed her babies approximately 18,250 bottles. She prepared at least 39,420 meals for her family and washed an estimated 79,570 loads of laundry. She simultaneously maintained a beautiful lawn, grew extraordinary flowers, advised a 4-H club, maintained the farm and family finances, and worked in the fields. She made untold runs to and from school to deliver the forgotten band instrument, pom poms for the evening game, and track spikes for the meet. The miles she racked up on her car were for toting her kids to and from basketball, cheerleading, band, and 4-H camps, plus the annual fall move-in and spring pick-up from an array of colleges and universities. Joann’s salary? Her family’s unending love and devotion.
Once her children were grown and she went to visit them, she took to them whatever she thought they might need – a new set of kitchen knives, special farm-grade weed killer, bulk packages of paper towels, and once even a new recliner strapped to the pickup. She rarely showed up at an out-of-towner child’s house without a beloved batch of her homemade ground roast beef, and in the dead of winter often brought along frozen sweet corn from August at the farm. She was famous for her willingness to deliver Dutch Haus doughnuts to her grown children and grandchildren in any state, even balancing them carefully in her lap on flights to California.
Joann had a great sense of adventure and traveled all over the country and even around the world to be a part of her family’s vacations, Suzuki camps, study abroad experiences, and family endeavors. She loved four-wheeling at the cabin in West Virginia, being present for graduations as far away as Colorado and Florida, taking road trips, enjoying cruises to Alaska, the Caribbean, and Mexico, and flying with her grandson in his King Air. During retirement she loved her and Carl’s two weeks in fall at Pumpkinfest in Indiana, working all the behind-the-scenes jobs while enjoying her favorite time of the year.
Back home, she could often be found sitting at the kitchen table listening to the concerns of her kids and grandkids while dishing out some food often covered with strawberry jam. She took care of everyone in her presence, and was always far more interested in hearing about everyone else than talking about herself. She loved watching everyone grow up and be successful and was very proud of the accomplishments, big or small, of every single child, grandchild, and great-grandchild.
She often showed her love to her family through cooking and could often be found baking or cooking with her grandkids. But beware - when asked for a family-favorite recipe, on more than one occasion it was documented that she would “accidentally” give it out with a missing ingredient or step, then complain because it didn’t taste just like hers. When her kids were little, she liked looking through magazines and newspapers to find new recipes she thought everyone else would like. She would write them on index cards and file them in The Recipe Box. One day she found the calla lily cookie recipe in a newspaper and said, “We are going to try this one.” And a legend was born.
She loved to be on the tractor in the fields; windrowing the potatoes at harvest was her favorite. She loved her office time and her balanced QuickBooks accounts. She had the uncanny ability to keep track of birthdays and anniversaries and could somehow make the cards arrive on THE day. She loved mowing the lawn and visiting with friends. Joann loved spending time with her grandchildren and doing things with them – reading, playing games, talking on FaceTime, watching them play sports and perform, teaching them to ride their bikes without training wheels, supervising their first drives on the RTV, and visiting special places with them. She loved babies, and babies loved her. Any baby she held was comforted, somehow instinctively knowing that she had done this several thousand times before. Joann had an artistic knack that could be seen in her flower beds incorporated into the landscape or her arrangements of pumpkins and gourds for display. She loved to go out to eat, she loved to laugh, and she loved to work. She could, in fact, outwork all of us well into her seventies. She loved scrubbed floors, streak-free windows, and the breeze that blew in through the screen windows and doors of the farmhouse.
And she was the boss. Make no mistake. She liked to keep us in line when we went even a little bit rogue. For example, we learned to never attempt to make her homemade strawberry jam process more efficient by doing multiple batches simultaneously. It just wasn’t allowed. There was a right way to do everything – a right way to sew the potato bags shut, to place 4 ears of sweet corn on one section of the conveyor belt, to hang clean curtains, and to cook Dad’s breakfast eggs. So you better learn it. And she stuck to her guns.
Joann loved nothing more than family, and would do anything for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And “family” was an all-encompassing term. We kids tended to bring people home, and just like that, they were part of the crowd around the kitchen table. As one granddaughter-in-law wrote, Joann had an unending amount of love to give that went beyond blood. She loved every single member of the family, even those who married in. She put no effort into criticizing the little things since there were just simply too many loved ones to waste that on. She just showered her family with love and rejoiced with them in their joys and triumphs.
Joann was known to always have “her house in order", and as such, she did not leave her earthly life until she hugged everyone and said her goodbyes before entering her eternal life with God.
Joann is survived by her four sons, Robert (Maggie) Garwood of Canfield, OH, James (Patricia) Garwood of Leetonia, OH, John (Linda) Garwood of Leetonia, OH, Luke Garwood of Glen Burnie, MD; five daughters, Joan (Craig) Bell of Chicago, IL, Jean (Kevin) Berger of New Waterford, OH, Lori (John) Bankert of Zionsville, IN, Carla Wade of Asheville, NC, Kellee (Greg) Fries of Reading PA; two sisters, Evelyn Yaggi of Beloit, OH, Jean Prior of FL; 29 grandchildren, and 37 great-grandchildren.
Joann was preceded in death by father, Orville Burbick, mother, Emma Burbick, husband, Carl Ross Garwood, son, Thomas Garwood, sister, Mildred Fiscus, sister, Vanita Kubas, brother, Orville Burbick, grandson, Zachary John Garwood.
Services will be held at Warrick-Kummer-Rettig Funeral Home, June 4, 2021, at 11:00 AM with Pastor Ryan Ervin officiating. Interment will follow in the Columbiana Cemetery, Columbiana, OH.
Friends will be received at the Warrick-Kummer-Rettig Funeral Home, Columbiana, OH, on Thursday, June 3, from 4:00 PM until 8:00 PM and on Friday, June 4, from 10:00 AM until 11:00 AM.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to “Crestview Local Schools – Garwood Memorial”, Crestview Local School District, 44100 Crestview Road, Suite A, Columbiana, Ohio 44408.
The family requests that those who are not vaccinated would please wear a mask.
Family and friends may view this obituary, sign the online guest book and send condolences to the family at www.familycareservices.com.