Joan Sutton KNOX

KNOX, Joan Sutton
Born May 1922
Died December 20, 2011

Joan Knox was born in Moscow, Idaho. Her father, Art, was a career executive with Standard Oil Company. The family - Art and mother Irene, Joan and younger sister Nancy - moved frequently with the company, finally settling in the Bay Area. Joan graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco in 1940 and entered U.C. Berkeley in the fall of that year. At Cal, she pledged Alpha Delta Pi Sorority and met Phil, her beloved husband-to-be, on a blind date bicycling around Lake Merritt in Oakland. When war broke out, Phil entered the V-12 Navy officer training program. On May 10, 1944, in Chicago, Phil was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy. Joan and Phil were married the same day with only another newly commissioned officer and his wife in attendance.

Phil shipped to the South Pacific and Joan resumed her studies at Cal. Phil returned after the war and they lived in ship worker housing in Richmond while Phil attended Hastings Law School, and Joan gave birth to two sons: Tom and John.

After Phil began practicing law in 1949, they bought their first house - in Walnut Creek. And they began an odyssey - following Phil's career opportunities - that carried them from Walnut Creek to Los Angeles, back to Walnut Creek, to Los Angeles again, to Chicago, to Philadelphia, to Washington D.C., to Chicago again and, finally, on Phil's retirement, to Sacramento.

In addition to making a home for her husband and sons, wherever they lived, Joan was everyone's favorite volunteer. In the 1960's, she was one of two alumna vice presidents for her college sorority, traveling regularly to campuses to encourage and nurture young women who had joined Alpha Delta Pi. And beginning in the 1970's, she served in increasingly responsible positions with the Red Cross, culminating in her appointment in Washington D.C. as National Chairman of Volunteers of the American Red Cross from 1979 -1982. In the retirement years that she shared with Phil in Sacramento, she was a member of the Rotary Club of Sacramento, Inner Wheel.

She could light up a room with her laughter and gaiety. She made herself happy by making others happy. She was as comfortable working a Red Cross bloodmobile in a tough neighborhood in Philadelphia as she was hostessing a party for congressmen and government officials in Washington.

She passed away peacefully in San Luis Obispo, where she had lived since 2003, with her daughter-in-law sitting at her bedside reading the Bible aloud to her.

She was a devout Catholic, inseparable from Phil until his death in 2002 and devoted to her family: sons Tom (Lise) and John (Jean); grandchildren Ben (Allison), Meg, Josh, Margae and J.T.; great granddaughter Mia; and numerous Sandner nieces, nephews and their children. They returned her devotion in full measure, and they mourn her passing now even as they celebrate the fact God has welcomed her into His eternal embrace.

Family members and friends celebrated Joan's life at a memorial mass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in Santa Barbara on January 14, 2012.

'For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' (Romans 8:38, 39)

Donations in Joan's memory may be sent to the American Red Cross, PO Box 4002018, Des Moines, IA 50340-2018.