Joanna Elizabeth Sowder

Born on September 30, 1936 to parents Oswald Basham and Thelma Mills-Basham-Bolen. She was driven in life by her devoted faith and love for her family. Married to the late Sherman Sowder together they raised there daughter Danita but also cared for her nieces, nephews, and neighbors. She was the kind of woman that took feed thy neighbor and love one another to heart. A long time member of the Oak Grove Christian Church she was known to guide those she knew and loved to the church and her faith while offering a helping hand to strangers.

While she lived humbly in her faith and teachings of Christ she also knew how important it was to live life to its fullest and stop to appreciate the beauty that came with it. She found this beautiful in many places, from the floral arrangements she would so carefully create to the ceramics she crafted in the ceramic shop she ran out of her home. She also knew how to have fun whether it was line-dancing at the Raleigh County Commission of Aging or just spending time with her friends and family.

She will be remembered as a wonderful woman that helped those in need, cared deeply for those around her, and live her life through honest work and an unbreakable faith in the Lord.

greeting her at the Pearly Gates are her husband Sherman Sowder; parents Oswald Basham and Thelma Mills-Basham-Bolen; her infant sister Myra Sue Basham; and her son-in-law Gary Bragg.

Those left to cherish her memory are her daughter Danita Bragg; as well as many nieces, nephews, and friends including an especially close niece Jackie Huffman (husband Wayne).

Services for Joanna will be held at Blue Ridge Funeral Home in Beckley, WV on Tuesday June 2nd, 2026 at 1 pm. Friends and family are invited to gather for an hour prior to the services to offer condolences, and share stories and memories. After the services she will be laid to rest next to her beloved husband at Blue Ridge Memorial Gardens.