Joan Taft

1925 - 2015

Joan McKelvy Taft, 89, of Lake Forest, Ill., died peacefully in the Lake Forest Hospital on January 16, 2015. She was born to Margaret Gosline and Charles Lockhart McKelvy in Pittsburgh, PA, April 30, 1925. Joan was raised in Perrysburg, Ohio, and graduated from The Westover School in Middlebury, Conn. then Sarah Lawrence College. Her first marriage to Edward F. Swift III of Lake Forest ended in divorce. She was predeceased by two beloved husbands: Douglas A. Warner, Jr. of Cincinnati and Robert A. Taft, Jr. of Cincinnati, and a brother, Charles L. McKelvy, Jr. of Perrysburg. She is lovingly remembered by her four children and their spouses: Theodore P. Swift and his wife Rebecca of Santa Barbara, CA; Edward M. Swift and his wife Sally of Carlisle, MA; Lockhart M. Swift and his wife Carol of McLean, VA; and Elizabeth Swift Morris and her husband Warren of Gates Mills, Ohio. She is further survived by ten grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and her stepchildren, Douglas A. Warner, III of Jupiter Island, Fl, Marjorie Off of Cincinnati, Gordon R. Warner of Cincinnati; Robert A. Taft, III of Spring Valley, Ohio; Jonathan D. Taft of Eliot, Maine, Sarah Taft Jones of Pine Plains, NY, and Deborah Taft Boutellis of Paris, France. Joan will be remembered for her lively sense of humor and her generosity. She was a skilled amateur photographer and a lover of nature. Her greatest joy was to gather her family around her and enjoy the fireworks that invariably ensued. If there were no fireworks, she created them. She loved her friends, her weekly bridge games; dogs; birds; travel; collecting art, Froggy's Restaurant, her godchildren, and Sky Farm in Cincinnati. A memorial service is planned in Cincinnati this spring. In lieu of flowers, donations in Joan's memory can be sent to the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago or the Cincinnati Nature Center. Info. Wenban Funeral Home, Lake Forest, IL www.wenbanfh.com or (847) 234-0022.