Today has been the saddest day of my life. After over 8 months of battling Leukemia and fearing this day, I still was not ready for it, At 1330 hours today my Beautiful, smart, and sweet wife died in my arms.
After me surviving over the loss of my parents and all my siblings, as well as very many dear friends, I know that I will probably somehow survive this, but right now I can’t imagine how. We were married for 57 years, six months, and 10 days. I don’t know what I will do without her. Many thanks to all of you for your love and support.
All my love,
John Wilkes
Friday, June 14, 2023 at Zaagman Memorial Chapel, 2800 Burton St. S.E., Grand Rapids, MI.
Visitation 10:00 am, Funeral service 11:00 am Burial after at Woodlawn Cemetery.
Please forward to anyone who might be interested. Obituary is on Zaagman's web site and below: www.zaagman.com
John Wilkes
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Jo Ann Westover Wilkes was born in Grand Rapids on December 5. 1946 to Ruth and Theodore Westover. She grew up attending Dickinson School, Burton Junior High, South high for a short time, and graduated from Mount Mercy Academy in 1965.
She first met her husband John when she was only sixteen on a big sail boat in Lake Michigan. He thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. After her graduation from Mount Mercy, his graduation from Vanderbilt University, and his acceptance by the Marine Corps to muster into Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia, they decided to marry.
Once the decision was made, there was little time to plan a wedding before his reporting date of January 6, 1966. Consequently the wedding took place on New Year’s Day. They had a short honeymoon in the nation’s capitol before a friend of John’s took Jo Ann to the airport to fly home and then took John to Quantico making it before his deadline by minutes. The couple could not see each other for three months until she traveled to Quantico for his commissioning as a Marine 2nd lieutenant.
Jo Ann was a wonderful military wife throughout his five years of active duty and 26 years as an active reserve officer. She was a very talented seamtress making sure his uniforms always fitted perfectly with the appropriate creases. John always claimed to be a good Field Marine, but Jo Ann always kept him out of trouble as a Garrison Marine. She even functioned as his barber.
In the beginning, it was financially difficult on a lieutenant’s salary. During Officer’s Basic School, she had to spend every winter’s day from dawn to dark in a rundown unfurnished apartment with only John’s German Sheppard to keep her company, but she never complained, and always made the best of it. Somewhere along the line she took up embroidery, knitting, and crocheting and greatly excelled at all of those endeavors. She completed many beautiful projects many of which are framed and still hanging magnificently in her beautiful house.
Things improved slightly when John was promoted and sent to the State Department’s Vietnamese language school. During the summer and fall of 1967, they lived in a furnished efficiency apartment on the seventh floor of a Dupont Circle high rise, but two people and a big dog were not crowed enough. She purchased a little Silky Terrier puppy, which later started a several years hobby of breeding, raising and showing, Silky Terriers. Eventually the last Silky Terrier died, but she has always been a devoted mother to John’s big dogs, a succession that has lasted up to the present with their 85 pound Dingo. This was probably facilitated by the sad realization that she was not able to bear children, and again she made the best of it.
While John was in Viet Nam in 1968 and 69, Jo Ann took courses in history and biology at Grand Rapids Junior College and did volunteer work at Blodgett Hospital. When John returned he was accepted to Vanderbilt Law School, so they headed back to Nashville. Jo Ann immediately got a job as a secretary for the Methodist Publishing House to help pay the very expensive bills. Again she excelled at the secretarial skills needed and during the three years of law school and subsequent seven years of John’s law practice in Nashville. She had increasingly fruitful legal secretary jobs with the Tennessee Department of Insurance, one of the biggest and most prestigious Nashville law firms, and even secretary to the Governor of Tennessee for two years. Finally it was not necessary for her to work to pay the bills, and she decided to be her husband’s executive secretary.
During her time in Nashville, she also became very active with their St, James Episcopal Church and its congregation. Fresh out of law school in 1973, John learned to fly and received a pilot’s license. Jo Ann also decided to take flying lessons. She did very well and after fifteen hours of dual training, she was released to fly solo. But she turned it down, because she said the only reason she took lessons in the first place was to be able to land the airplane if John became incapacitated for any reason.
Around 1980, John decided to leave the law practice to take the position of general counsel of a local international airline, which initiated his new career as an airline executive. He had always maintained a side career as an active reserve Marine officer. His new career as an airline executive took them back to Michigan, then to Ireland, then to Waco, Texas, then to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Jo Ann loved Ireland. After being there 24 months with only a couple of weeks back in the states to help care for her dying father, she was still reluctant to leave.
Jo Ann was always ready to support John with every kind of support he needed. He never could have succeeded in all his endeavors without her unfaltering help. As they gradually became retired they both became active in the United States Sail & Power Squadron (recreational boating), and the Civil Air Patrol (US Air Force Auxiliary), both of which required a complete new set of uniforms for Jo Ann to maintain. When John decided to become an author, Jo Ann became his typist, amazingly precise proof reader, and best critic for creating his novels.
Finally the retired couple returned to Park Township, a suburb of Holland, Michigan in 2007 to be close to their families and the beautiful summers. They lived seasonally between their two houses for several years but finally sold the Gulf Coast house when Jo Ann grew weary of traveling back and forth.
Early in life, as it was with every endeavor she attempted, Jo Ann also became an outstanding cook. Her potato salad, for example, was legendary amongst her family and friends. She also loved to work on the grounds around her beautiful home which she kept immaculate in spite of one of her husband’s ever present large dogs.
In recent months, with the onset of the terrible Leukemia, Jo Ann remained stoic with tremendous courage to the very last. She was, and will always be, greatly loved by her husband and siblings, all of which have survived her, and all of which say Jo Ann was her father’s favorite – sisters Kandee VanBelois of Jacksonville, North Carolina, Carolynn Maternowski of Edwardsburg, Michigan, Cathylynn Estes of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and brother, Theodore Westover of Saranac, Michigan. She is already incredibly missed by all. Visitation will be Friday July 14, 2023 from 10:00 am to 11:00 am at Zaagman Memorial Chapel, 2800 Burton St. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546. A funeral service will follow at 11:00 am.
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Love and Prayers
Larry + Medy Magilligan
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So very sorry, John. You and Jo Ann and your family are in our thoughts and prayers.
Semper Fi
Beth and Craig Hullinger
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I am so sorry to hear that Jo Ann has passed. Especially from such a terrible disease.
I can only express my condolences and sympathy.
I wish for the best for you.
Tom Olsen
