Joann Edwards

Joann Edwards of Great Falls, passed away on Sunday, June 28, 2020, of natural causes at the age of 87. Cremation has taken place and burial will take place later this summer in Augusta. O’Connor Funeral Home is handling arrangements. Josephine Ann Rebman was born on February 21, 1933, in Monroe, MI, to Andrew Rebmann and Garnet Flowers. She was their third child with older brother, Charles, and sister, Kathleen. Her father died in 1944 and the next year, she and her mother moved to California to be with her mother’s sister and her husband. They lived in Oakland for a while and eventually moved to a ranch near Gilroy, CA. While there, her sister, Kathie, met Phil Pings of Augusta, and they moved to Augusta. Joann convinced her mother to move to Augusta, so they moved there in 1948. It was there that she met her future husband, William Edwards, of nearby Gilman. She attended Great Falls High her junior and senior years until marrying William on February 17, 1950, at St. Ann’s Cathedral in Great Falls. While living in Great Falls, they had four children, Andrea (1951), Michael (1953), Debra (1954), and Cynthia (1956). In 1957, they moved to Cut Bank and began 15 years of farming and ranching. They moved to Choteau in 1961, and later west of Conrad in 1962. In 1972, the family moved back to Great Falls. In 1974, they built the stockyards west of Great Falls. She worked as a bookkeeper for a few organizations, the latest being Kairos Youth Services from 1984 through her retirement in 2005. Joann was interested in her ancestry and started putting both of her and Bill’s family trees together in the 1980’s. She was still working on them at the time of her death. She was proud to trace an ancestor who immigrated from England in 1629; another ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary war; and two great-grandfathers who fought for the Union during the Civil War. Joann was preceded in death by her parents; brother, Chuck; sister, Kathie; husband, William; and daughter, Andrea. She is survived by son, Michael (Susan) of Great Falls; daughter, Debra (James) Knowles of Laurel; and daughter, Cynthia Tietjen of Great Falls; grandchildren, Heather, Jared, Dawn, Cole, Bryan, Lindsay, and Makinzee; and great-grandchildren, Amelia, Morgan, David, William, and Ella.