Joan Clair Silver-Mcdow

Joan Clarice Florence Woelfel was born June 27, 1929, to Joseph and Katherine Woelfel, in Chilton, Wisconsin. She was an only child. Mother was a homemaker and father owned and operated the first local appliance and electronics store, at a time when local farms and homes were just beginning to be wired for electricity.

Joan's father was challenged by polio, and her mother never learned to drive, so the teenage Joan took on the early responsibility of family driver, acquiring a license at 14.

Joan attended St. Mary's Catholic School, where she gained many good experiences learning from the nuns and acquiring an early love for music. Upon attending University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, she studied with the same private tutor who trained the young Liberace. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Education and began teaching in Polaski, WI.

In the summer of 1956, while singing and playing piano for a choral touring group, on a blind bowling date in Boulder, Colorado, Joan met her future husband, Wallace Silver, of the Bronx, New York. After Wally received his degree in Chemical Engineering, with the promise of a job at the Naval Weapons Center in Ridgecrest, CA, the couple headed west out of Boulder on July 4 ^th , in a snowstorm.

On July 18, 1968, Joan and Wally became parents to their only son, Nathan. The blessed event also resulted in the brief hospitalization of Wally, overwhelmed by nerves that landed him in the recovery room next door to his wife.

Between 1958 and 1991, Joan primarily taught Kindergarten at Ridgecrest Heights, alongside her dear friend and colleague, Jean McCammon, as well as travelling the district as an itinerant elementary music teacher, for a total of 17 years of educational service. She retired to care for her husband, Wally, after he suffered a series of debilitating strokes.

On June 9 ^th , 1995, Joan re-married an old family friend, CPO (retired) Tomie McDow. This fortuitous union began many happy years of a second life, touring the United States Southwest and Pacific Northwest along the "Good Sam" circuit, eventually settling in the tiny hamlet of Port Orford, on the Southern Oregon Coast, the western-most point in the lower 48 states.

Joan and Tomie's time in Port Orford revolved around gardening, enjoying some of the finest crystal-clear ocean air the US has to offer, and entertaining frequent visits from friends and family passing through. Joan, again became President of the local garden club, increasing community engagement and membership during her time on the coast. Her own backyard garden was well worthy of the spectacular, dramatic landscape, with unobstructed views of the Cape Blanco Lighthouse to the north, and the Port Orford Head's trail system out the door. It was not long before Joan and Tomie had all the neighborhood deer named.

In the final years of her life, Joan moved to The Palms, a retirement community in La Mirada, California, where she was closer to her son and daughter-in-law, Jennifer. The Palms grounds are a well-maintained botanical garden, with a variety of exotic palms and fruit bearing plants, which continued to be a focal point of Joan's deep commitment to nature and natural environments.  In the last few months of her life, Joan banded together with several other friends at The Palms, collaborating on a letter to corporate management, addressing deteriorating food quality, and community safety. As a result, Holiday Retirement sent a group of executives to assess the situation, removing the acting GM.

After beating back cancer twice with the help of radiation, and spending most every Wednesday with her son, Joan finally succumbed to congestive heart failure, with her son at her side, during the early afternoon hours of May 9 ^th , 2022. She was 92, and sharper than many half her age.

Joan Silver- McDow will be memorialized on Saturday, June 11 ^th at 10:00 a.m., at St. Ann's Catholic Church in Ridgecrest, CA. Interment will follow at Desert Memorial Park.