Born in 1933 in Decatur, IL, Joanne received a Bachelor of Arts from Marymount College in Tarrytown, NY. She was employed as a lab technician in the Department of Research Medicine at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, GA, and held positions as a medical secretary at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta and Duke Hospital in Durham, NC. She eventually moved to Tarpon Springs, FL, where she married William Wright and worked in customer service for Nielsen ratings.
Despite a lifelong disability, Joanne had an inspiring determination to achieve and unending gratitude for life. She loved gardening, knitting, music, swimming and simply connecting with people, enjoying a special bond with her identical twin sister, Jeanne. Her experiences impressing and befriending President FDR at a young age were recorded for the archives of his Little White House near the Warm Springs Foundation, a treatment center for people with polio.
Joanne was admired and loved by her family and many life-long friends. She is survived by two sisters, Jeanne Doran Backe and Marjorie Doran Hayden, as well as numerous nieces and nephews, whom she adored and cherished as if they were her own.
All memorial gifts are requested to go to ASPCA as a testimony to Joanne’s love of animals.
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