Jo Ann McCaleb

Jo Ann Carraway McCaleb 15 May 1927 - 25 September 2025 Jo Ann Carraway McCaleb, 98, passed away peacefully on September 25, 2025 at her home on the Guadalupe River, near Comfort, TX.

Jo Ann was born in San Antonio on May 15, 1927 and spent her 98 birthdays surrounded by those she loved. The only child of Ben and Bernice (Fearin) Carraway, Jo Ann dreamed of being part of a big family. Her four children, seventeen grandchildren and soon to be twenty-three great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews, creating families and living in all corners of the country and abroad, are a picture of how that dream became Jo Ann's treasured reality. Alongside Jack McCaleb (1927-2022), the high school sweetheart who became her beloved husband of more than seven decades, Jo Ann built a family where celebration was always central and friends were always near.

Jo Ann's early years were spent in central San Antonio, where she loved to play with her best friend, Ann, who had five siblings! She remembered a happy childhood in spite of the Great Depression and her house burning down on the day of Pearl Harbor. Though Jo Ann's teenage years were shadowed by World War II, they were highlighted by the arrival of bright-eyed Jack McCaleb into her life. Sweethearts at Jefferson High School from the age of 15, Jack and Jo Ann dated through high school, where she was a bugler for the Jefferson Lassos drill team! In 1944, Jo Ann set off for the University of Texas in Austin, where she was a member of Chi Omega sorority, met lifelong friends, marched in a campus protest and proudly wore Jack's Phi Gamma Delta pin. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Home Economics in 1948, working after college in interior design. Jo Ann and Jack married in San Antonio in November, 1948, and began their life together, raising their four children.

As her children grew, Jo Ann threw herself into their lives, volunteering with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, helping with school activities and spending countless hours in the bleachers of baseball diamonds, football fields and tennis courts, and later began her own Interior Design business. She and Jack enjoyed a tight-knit group of friends from high school and college, taking family vacations together, volunteering for a cause, playing tennis and enjoying weekly bridge. Faith was a centerpoint of Jo Ann and Jack's family life. They served as longtime members of Alamo Heights Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, and later Gaddis Memorial United Methodist Church in Comfort.

As retirees in the 1980's, Jo Ann and Jack created their own "little bit of heaven" when they moved a Victorian cottage from downtown San Antonio to the banks of the Guadalupe River near Comfort, Texas. Together, they restored it, filling the home with the antiques they collected on their travels around the world. With Jack, Jo Ann continued her love for design, refinishing and selling antiques in San Antonio and later in Comfort, where they relocated permanently in the 1990's. She earned her country stripes when she shot a rattlesnake on their property, posed for a photo with it, then hung the skin on her wall as a trophy.

Jo Ann loved nothing more than a house filled with family and friends, still hosting bridge, dinners and countless holidays – Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas – with her growing family. Lovingly known as "Momo" to her 17 grandchildren, Jo Ann was devoted to them, including each one in her life, from collecting sand dollars in Port Aransas, making grape jelly from her wild vines, hosting "Camp River Bend" for the granddaughters with her lifelong friend Dottie, faithfully attending grandkids' events and planning trips with them to Disneyworld, Big Bend and Colorado. Jo Ann made simple moments fun. Comfort Christmases were an annual highlight, filled with spiked eggnog, white elephant gift exchanges and a sofa crowded with cousins. Mornings in Comfort often started with a quiet moment on "Momo's favorite rock" under the cypress trees and later taking in the beauty of the river with Jack from the back porch of their home where they welcomed each new great-grandchild.

Jo Ann will be remembered for her smile, her openness of heart, her funny particular wit, and her uncompromising devotion to those she loved. Her commitment to friendship and a good celebration will live on in the sprawling family she leaves behind.

Jo Ann was preceded in death by her parents, Ben and Bernice Carraway; husband Jack McCaleb; and son-in-law Robert Schmidt. She is survived by her four children and spouses: John and Margo McCaleb, Ben and Teresa McCaleb, Jenni Schmidt, and Dick and Serena McCaleb; her seventeen grandchildren, Chad McCaleb (Amanda), Jeffrey McCaleb (Amber), Julie Friedman (Kerr), Terrell Flanigan (Connor), Jennifer Sinha (Anmol), Chase McCaleb (Kara), Addison McCaleb (Anna), Matthew McCaleb, Hanna Balemi (Ryan), Sarah Maag (Michael), Emma Schmidt (fiancé Daleth Mountjoy), Caleb Schmidt (Carlie), Abigail Schmidt (Peter Keairnes), Nellie Schmidt, Madeleine McCaleb-Harman (Colin), Anna McCaleb (Nick Simonite) and Jack McCaleb; her twenty-three great-grandchildren; her sister-in-law Joyce McCaleb; her nieces Kristin Rogers (Randy), Karis Verlander (Elmore Verlander) and Shawn Stedman (Steve), and nephews, Scott McCaleb (Wendy) and James McCaleb.

The family extend heartfelt thanks to Jo Ann's property caretakers and nurturing caregivers who were each dear friends of hers: Sori and Vladimir Robles, José Palacios, Diane Maring, Shauna DaCosta, Brenda Garza and Cristina Old and Braden Goodwin, who made it possible for her to remain at her beloved home on the river these past many years.

Friends are cordially invited to celebrate Jo Ann's life at a memorial service on Tuesday, October 7th at 11:30am at Gaddis Memorial United Methodist Church, 141 US-87, Comfort, Texas. Immediately following, all are invited to greet the family during a reception at the church.

Expressions of sympathy may be sent at www.schaetter.com

Funeral arrangements under the direction of the Schaetter Funeral Home