Jo Ann Scholar

Jo Ann Scholar passed away peacefully while sleeping in her home in Laurel on May 5, 2018.  She was 88 years old.

Jo Ann was born on Black Tuesday, 1929, the day the Stock Market collapsed at the beginning of the Great Depression, during a snowstorm, to Edmund and Lucille Garrison in Beckley, West Virginia.

She had many careers during her lifetime working first as a laboratory technician at Beckley Hospital.  Then Jo Ann married Roy Gentile and became the wife of a career Army officer, where she became skilled at creating a new home every 2 years, for her growing family, as they moved to new postings throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Panama. When her first marriage ended in divorce, Jo Ann ventured into a new career in sales – first selling life insurance and then settling into office furniture sales, where she met and married her second husband, Albert Scholar.  She continued working in that industry until she was 79.

Jo Ann was a long-time member of the Georgetown Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC.  She loved animals, especially dogs; small children; her friends but most of all her family.

She is survived by her sister Margaret, her daughters, one granddaughter, and her nieces and nephews, and great nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by Tutankhamun, Eleanor Roosevelt, Benny Hill, her parents, and both husbands.

Visitation will be on Friday, May 11th from 4:00-7:00 p.m. at the Donaldson Funeral Home, 313 Talbott Ave., Laurel, MD 20707.

In lieu of flowers, and if you so wish, please consider making a contribution to Voices 21 which she actively supported since its inception 18 years ago and attended every rehearsal for the last 8 years! ( http://voicesxxi.org/  - Voices 21, P.O. Box 328 Fulton, MD 20759-0328).

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