Joan's Girls: The Life of Grandma Joan

Our Message

Joan Ruth Smith Stout passed away on September 5, 2007. She was my beloved mother and grandmother of the beautiful girls pictured to the right, Kim, Tiffany, Tara, Chelane, Stephanie, Tristen, Sara, Telisa, Mikel, Jenny and Ashling. My mother died due to complications from malnourishment, or in other words, an eating disorder. I believe it started in her teens and she was completely unaware of the insidious disease that took route in her mind. She was somehow blessed to give birth to four children, three boys and a girl. Joan loved her children with devotion and passion even though much of the time, she felt poorly. Stomach problems, headaches and heart palpitations were a daily occurrence for her. As her only daughter, I was oblivious to her plight until my very own sweet daughter started on that same journey in her teens. By then my mom had been suffering from her eating disorder for a good fifty years, and there was no redirecting her thoughts. Unfortunately for me, I was angry for a while when I realized that the route of all her illnesses was through lack of nutrition. That was shameful on my part, and I am sure that only added to my mom's illness. I hope she knows now how foolish I was. However, through the journey of Telisa's eating disorder, the girls in our family have learned much, especially Telisa! It is for this reason that we collectively, as Joan's Girls, are choosing to send the message out to the world of what real beautiful bodies need to support good physical and mental health!!!!!!! We watch with horror the unhealthy and unattractive images on TV, Movies, Magazines etc. We witness some of our dear friends struggle with body image issues, and frankly we are sick of the comparing and obsessing over one's size versus one's health!! We believe in good health, we believe in eating the food provided for us by our Heavenly Father, we believe in balance and moderation, we believe in exercise in moderation, we also believe the best exercise is done while serving others, we believe that God created many types of bodies and we thank Him for that! We believe in modesty and we believe that our bodies are a gift from Heavenly Father! We believe that true beauty comes from within. All of Joan's granddaughters are true beauties. Our legacy to her will be our commitment to the TRUTH of what is beautiful and praiseworthy. We seek after these things. We will strive for good health and the truth in all we do!

Monday, January 11, 2010

The Life of Grandma Joan

Grandma Joan riding her favorite horse, Ginger! She LOVED riding a horse. I believe that is when she was happiest!

Grandma grew up next to a Lumber Mill in St. Ignacious, Montana!

Her favorite dog, Chum!

Grandma Joan with her neice, Sally. I'm certain my Grandma Verna made these dresses. Check out the detail work!! She loved to dress up her daughter Joan. I remember Mom telling me if there was an event that my mom needed a new dress for, if they didn't have any money, my Grandma would take apart some of her own clothes and sew a new dress for my mom and would be out of this world cute!!!

2 comments:

Stephie said...: She is so beautiful! I love these pics I haven't seen most of these before!! Thanks for posting them! xo; January 11, 2010 8:53 PM
Beus Family said...: Thanks for posting those great pictures! I'm with Tris, I wish I could travel back in time and see her back then!; January 13, 2010 4:26 AM