Josephine Alma Truesdell

Josephine Alma “Pete” Gassman Truesdell, a loving wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and aunt, died of natural causes Thursday, July 10, 2025, the day after her 91st birthday.

She was born in Port Jervis, NY, on July 9, 1934, and spent some of her early teen years overseas while her father, a Chief Warrant Officer in the Army, served in Japan. She graduated from Forest Avenue High School in Dallas (now James Madison High School) in 1951, and married classmate Raymond W. Truesdell, Jr., in 1953. Theirs was a loving, 69-year partnership that ended when he passed away in 2022. Although a broken heart isn’t the official cause of death, her family members know her heart never healed after losing her soulmate.

Although her true calling was wife and mother, she worked as a secretary at Practical Drawing Company in Dallas as a young woman, and later, she learned American Sign Language and worked as an aide, then a secretary, in the Mesquite Regional Day School for the Deaf at Motley Elementary. She was the secretary at I.N. Range Elementary in Mesquite later and retired from that position in 1987 when her first grandchild was born and she wanted to be free for full-time doting.

Josephine is survived by daughter Judy Truesdell of Wylie; daughter Jenifer Christman and her husband Woody of Allen; son Raymond Todd (“Rod”) Truesdell and his wife Barb of Rougemont, N.C.; son-in-law Ken Koehn of Valrico, FL; granddaughter Jensen Mecca Hodgson, PhD., her husband Joseph and their daughter Olive of Plano; granddaughter Cassie Koehn Hua, PhD., her husband Zhenyang and their children Alan and Lily of Northborough, MA; grandson Ben Koehn of Lake Mary, FL; grandson Connor Christman of Allen; grandchildren Hannah and Em G Truesdell of Greensboro, NC; grandson Patrick Truesdell and his wife Sophie of Antwerp, Belgium; and many nieces and nephews. In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by daughter Donna Truesdell Koehn.

She was gentle, kind, warm and loving and had a big, generous heart with room for her family, all the kids with whom she interacted in Mesquite ISD, and all animals, including her beloved dogs, any sick or wounded animal brought to her by neighborhood kids, and even the wild birds she fed every day in her yard.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to Austin Pets Alive, austinpetsalive.org, which is working to rescue pets from recent floods.

The family wishes to thank Angela Weathers, Chester and Julie Mitchell, the Ayonga family of Nedge’s Nest, and Rachel Van Houten, RN, and the other loving employees of Anointed Hospice.