Josephine Ann Kerwin Stahovic, originally of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, died June 14, 2014, at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.
She was born March 12, 1941, a daughter of the late Joseph Kerwin and Gertrude Kerwin Searfoss in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
She and her husband, Stephen John Stahovic, both graduates of the James M. Coughlin High School in Wilkes-Barre, would have celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary in December. They had lived since 1980 in Hillsborough, New Jersey, but moved to Little Elm in 2010 to be near their children and grandchildren.
Josephine (known as JoAnn) graduated from Coughlin High School in Wilkes-Barre in 1960; she had been voted queen of her junior prom in 1959. She graduated from the Wilkes-Barre School of Practical Nursing in 1961. She and her mother and her two sisters were all nurses.
In her youth she was a dance student and later an instructor with the David Blight Studios in Wilkes-Barre, and, in the early days of television, she appeared with David Blight on a weekly dance program broadcast on WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre.
She and her husband enjoyed traveling and had spent a week in Las Vegas, returning only a few days before her short final illness. Her devotion and greatest pleasure were her husband Steve, her children, and her grandchildren.
Surviving besides her husband are a daughter, Mrs. Cindy Arana Banigan and her husband Mike of Frisco, Texas, and a son, Tony Arana and his wife Angella of Little Elm, Texas. Also surviving are five grandchildren, Dylan, Finn, Jake, Lauren, and Mackenzie, all of Frisco.
Also two sisters, Mrs. Mary Ellen Bomboy and her husband Robert in Danville, Pennsylvania, and Nancy Whitehead of Annapolis, Maryland, along with a nephew, Robert D. Bomboy and his wife Jena of Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, and three nieces, Nancy Beasley and her husband Jamie of Frederick, Maryland, Tara Zukosky of Shavertown, Pennsylvania, and Molly Jacks and her husband Stephen of Riverside, Pennsylvania.
Funeral services in Texas are being conducted at the Turrentine Jackson Morrow Funeral Home in Frisco. A memorial service for friends and former classmates will be held at 5 p.m. on June 26 at St. Nicholas Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.