Joan Ackland - my sister, my friend 1931-2011

This is a picture of Joan, taken in 2010, just before she became ill. It sits in this flamingo frame that was hers. She loved flamingos - high class "flamgos", as we sisters called them - none of that plastic kind you
stick in the ground outside your house.

Joan donated her body to University of Toledo Medical Center. Every year the college has a memorial service for the families of those people who donated their bodies. I wrote a short piece about my dear sis and sent it along with this picture to be displayed at the service. This is what I said about Joan.

Joan and I were 13 months apart in age. We sometimes called ourselves "almost twins".
Joan never married but I shared my children with her and she loved them as I do. She filled her retirement years (30+ years with Ohio Bell - in Toledo - Columbus - Cleveland), playing solitaire on the computer (her favorite was free cell), watching the latest movies and reading English mysteries by her favorite authors, Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George and P.D. James. (Notice they are all female?)
One of Joan's favorite things was making a house the personal expression of herself. When she finished decorating one she was ready to move onto another. Through the years Joan owned 8 houses.
I miss Joan very much, my beloved sister, my dear friend.
What I have put into parentheses are words I added just now.

These drawings of Joan's houses were done by our dear friend, Jim Polk. He is very well known in the Cleveland area and across the U.S. for his house portraits. Interested? let me know and I'll hook you up
 with him.
This is Joan's first Florida house - located in Cape Coral.
In the back yard was a huge avocado tree! A man came to the house one day and asked if he could pick them. He would give her x number of $s for each bushel. She sold them to him but asked him for 2 green ones that she sent home with me. Yummy, yummy!!

 
This is Joan's second house, located in Fort Myers, Florida. Notice the flora in both of these houses. Joan joined the Florida Native Plant Society and had her yards landscaped with native Florida plants.
She bought a huge generator that sat on a cement slab outside the house. She also had a double storage shed in the back yard. She had a reverse mortgage on this house and because she had to move away, ran into an unbelievable amount of trouble. (I am still dealing with the mortgage company). Sadly, the mortgage company did not look at Joan's lovely, updated house and soon the generator was stolen and then the shed. I'm sure the inside has been ravaged, too.

This is a house in Old German Village in Columbus, OH. When Joan was transferred (and probably promoted) with Ohio Bell she lived in this house, at that time broken up into 2 apartments. She eventually bought the house. It was her first purchase and she had a lot of trouble getting a loan. Loaning to a woman was unheard of and she really fought to get a mortgage. She won! In the yard was an apricot tree that produced wonderful, juicy apricots.

This house is located in Ohio City, an area much like Toledo's Old West End. Joan was transferred (and, again, probably promoted, to Cleveland) and lived with a cousin in Ohio City. One day, strolling through the neighborhood, she saw this abandoned house. She found the owner and worked with him a long time before he finally agreed to sell the house. She got it for a song!
She began to refurbish the house but..........one night three young men broke in and held her at gun point and robbed her. She quickly sold the place and moved on to................

......this house on the west side of Cleveland. I was now divorced and spent a number of weeks and week-ends here. 

After our mother died in 1982, and Joan realized she was not going to live forever, we bought a house on Main Street here in Sylvania. (The house is no longer there - was torn down for a condo site). This is the house where we lived when judi's creative needle was established. When we sold this house Joan gave the portrait to the new owners, thus no picture.

Joan moved onto a lake property that Jim never saw - and so no portrait. From the lake in Michigan, she went to Florida.

Joan became very ill in Florida and had to be on oxygen 24/7. Jim and I went to Florida to help Joan with a moving sale. She bought a trailer (manager would cringe when we said the word "trailer". He called them "manufactured homes" but they were double-wide trailers!) she immediately started to make this place her own by painting, decorating, etc. Sadly, she developed pneumonia, went to the hospital, was put on a vent, learned she would never get off the vent, went to hospice and died.

 

I wanted to share this with you viewers. Joan was such a dear sister and friend and she needs to be a part of my blog.