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Hi everyone,

I'm sitting at my house in Sonora just having finished looking at the pictures. Outside it is drippy and wet, trees are turning all sorts of colors and I am reminded of times spent at the house on Altschul. There were many beautiful trees, and grass all around the house..so inviting. I remember sitting in the kitchen having coffee, lots of good coffee before going out to work with Ken somewhere. Thank you for being so nice to me Joan and raising such great sons who have been such a blessing to me. Also, thank you for being such a great grandmother..I want to remember how involved you were with your own children and grandchildren and try to be the same kind of grandparent to my own grandchildren some day.

Tom McGrady

Dear Joan,

It was fun viewing the pictures of you and your wonderful family...especially the musical scenes and the pictures of Brenna & Miles! You were loved and appreciated. You will be missed. Thank you for making me feel so welcome in your home the several times I visited.

Kathy

Happy birthday Grandma Joan...

...You're older than a lot of dead people.

Love always
brenna

EDITOR'S NOTE: When Brenna was four years old she said this to her grandmother, who always found it hysterical.

Joan will always live on in my heart for her youthful spirit, her giggly laughter, her immense love for her family, her wonderful integration of mischief and propriety. Happy birthday, "muddah!" :-)

Dina

I remember Joan as being the sweet auntie that took me and my sister to Oregon. I saw real grandpa for the first time.
Auntie Joan let me shoot cans with a unloaded shot gun. She made the best cookies and was always very upfront and funny. Love that lady.
Remember when we went mudsliding down the hill, with Shawn, Bruce and Joan and everyone. Good times, Good Times.
Love Sissy, (Tahsanchat Ferris-Wilson)

There was a little band of us --and it included "the other Joan"-- who used to get together on Tuesdays to sew, knit, mend, etc. and chit-chat, something we women really need to do. What a "fun" group! And when we no longer needed to sew, we gathered for lunch, particularly remembering each others' birthdays. But our little group changed when first Sheila, then Laila Larsen left us. The rest of us tried to keep up the wonderful comradeship--I will always miss Joan, and our other warm friendships.

~ Joan Inglis

Paul's note reminds me of how she got me started: She bribed me with a sack of candy orange slices to accompany her to the Clan Stewart Highland Games. Somehow -- and it's a mystery to me too -- she got me to start taking lessons....

Just a few weeks ago, she reminded me about those candy orange slices.

~ Lynn

I will remember Joan for many things, but the one thing mostly will be her using her influence to pursuade my parents that I should learn to play Highland Bagpipes like I wanted to since first hearing pipes at age 6 or 7. She got me an instructor, Malcolm Boyd when I was 14 and somehow, it's still a mystery to me, got my parents to order a set of pipes from Scotland. Lynn [her son] played pipes and I couldn't stay away from them. Welsh people, i.e. my parents, don't engage, generally speaking in the activities of those rough, wild and crazy neighbors to the north, the Scottish people. How did they happen to have a son, so smitten with the great Scottish noise maker? They hoped it was an illness that would pass. It did not. And Joan, bless her, understood my enthusiasm and did what needed to be done, for the sake of Scotland and me.

~ Paul Llewellyn

Joan will always be a twinkling star in my world. Much love and merry music to all you dear Cooleys (and Cooleys-at-heart!),

--Elizabeth

I knew Joan as the mother of a great family of musical boys. Her home was always open to their friends and her wonderful hospitality was enjoyed by all of us. Although I haven't been able to spend much time with the family lately, they are still very special to me. When it is time to do some of the "spade work" in Cottage Grove, perhaps I can help.

Love to the whole family...Suzie Rose

Back in high school (early 1970s), Joan was becoming like a favorite aunt. During one of my many visits to 1600, I was about to address her as such. I must have been thinking in the masculine form at the moment, and I said, "Hello, Uncle..." and my mind leapt ahead to what name I'd use--I couldn't call her 'Uncle' Joan--so I finished, "...Jones". From then on, she was my Uncle Jones.

~ Curt

Hi,

I remember when there was a certain blue vest in gramma's closet, and I liked to put it on and pretend I was a mailbox!

~ Miles Cooley

Mom,

As you always told me to say, "Thank you, dear sweet kind loving wonderful mother, without whom I could not exist."

~ Ken