Joanne Adelaide Woodford Wilson

Joanne Adelaide Woodford was born to Thomas Jerome Woodford and Marjorie Clementine Hardin Woodford on April 18, 1930, in Detroit, Michigan. Joanne grew up on Holcomb Avenue in an ethnically and linguistically diverse neighborhood on Detroit’s east side, and her early experiences inspired many compelling stories that she later shared with her children and grandchildren of a childhood rich with multiple cultural influences.

Joanne excelled academically in the Detroit Public Schools, graduating a year early from Eastern High School in June of 1947 at the top of her class. In addition to stellar grades, Joanne’s high school career included awards for her work as a journalist, both as a member of the school’s newspaper and as an intern at The Michigan Chronicle.

Joanne was gifted musically. She learned to play the piano as a young child and continued to derive joy as a pianist well into her golden years; when moving from one house to another, Joanne insisted on having a piano in her new residence. She was a soprano in her high school’s choir and, until her mid-eighties, in her church choir.

Joanne was a lifelong naturalist. She received her bachelor’s degree in biology, with a concentration in botany, in 1951 from Wayne State University (then called Wayne University), which she attended on full academic scholarship. In addition to her knowledge of plants, she could also identify numerous bird species, not only by sight but also from their songs. She loved and promoted the welfare of all animals, wild and domestic, and was never without at least a couple of (usually several) pets to care for and shower with affection.

Until late middle age, Joanne was a skilled hunter and angler, hobbies she enjoyed sharing with her husband, Bill, in the woods of Michigan, especially near the family’s cottage in Idlewild, as well as in Ontario, Canada.

Cooking and baking were also among Joanne’s talents. Her specialties included irresistible spaghetti with meat sauce and utterly delectable oatmeal raisin cookies. She was an avid bridge player and enjoyed participating in bridge clubs throughout her adult life.

After college graduation, Joanne worked for the Eloise Psychiatric Hospital in Westland, Michigan until she decided to become a science teacher. She joined the DPS as an elementary science teacher in 1955 and continued to teach natural science at the elementary and middle school levels for more than 25 years. She then earned her master’s degree in school counseling from the University of Michigan and became a middle school counselor, a position she held until her retirement. Joanne loved receiving correspondence and visits from former students whose lives she touched as a firm but compassionate educator and counselor.

In 1969, Joanne and other DPS science teachers applied for a newly created position: on-camera teacher. The initiative was designed to provide science instruction via television in schools that lacked an in-person science educator. Joanne’s proposed scripts and on-camera audition won her the job. Her show, which she titled “Science is Everywhere” to reflect her appreciation of the relevance of nature to our daily lives, ran on Detroit’s public television station from 1970 to 1973 in first-run broadcasts and for many years thereafter as re-broadcasts; it was used instructionally in classrooms throughout DPS for more than a decade. “Science is Everywhere” received awards for its approachable, informative pedagogical style. For several years after her retirement, Joanne produced a radio show, “Sights and Sounds of Science,” on the DPS educational broadcasting station, and episodes of the television series “Daedal Doors.”

Joanne married William Ernest Wilson at her home on the day after her birthday in 1952. They became the parents of two children, who grew up in Detroit as their parents had. After retiring, Joanne and Bill moved to Deerbrook, Ontario, Canada; they named their farm Grey Dawn Acres. Joanne enjoyed raising sheep and driving and riding horses, including her Morgan horse, October Moonshine, at horse shows. In 2004, the couple relocated to northern Virginia to be closer to their children, who had made their homes in the Washington, DC area.

Joanne made her transition to heaven peacefully on March 22, 2025, a few weeks shy of her 95th birthday.

Preceded in passing by her beloved partner of 55 years; her parents; her brother, Lorin Anderson; and her son-in-law, Derwin Abston, Joanne is survived by her daughter, Pamela Abston; her son, Christopher Wilson; her grandchildren, Linden Abston, Norah Wilson, and Nathaniel Wilson; her sister, Molly Woodford; and her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Wilson.

A private celebration of Joanne’s life is planned.