Jodi Sue Ferris

Jodi Sue Ferris, slipped away peacefully at approximately 2:00pm on Thursday, March 18th, 2021 in Glendale, Colorado after losing her battle to Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, This occurred shortly after the Denver Hospice Pastor Karen had met with her and offered a prayer of life and the bridge to the life ever-after. Her family truly believes it was the release that Jodi was looking for before joining her mother in heaven. She was 59 years old.

Jodi was born May 29, 1961 in Grand Rapids, Michigan to Bill and Marlene Vanderstel.

Jodi is survived by her son Derek, and her daughter Meagan. Her beloved husband Joseph and her father Bill, brothers Tom and Brad their wives Tina and Sue Vandestel, Maria Ferris (mother in-law) Deborah and Jon Wines, Jim and Heather Ferris and Ellamae Bergman.

Nephews/ Neices: Kevin Dragseth, Andrew Dragseth, Issac Dragseth, Quinn Kerswill and Laine Kerswill.

Friends: Kelley Jackson-Condon, Kelsie Kenefick, Ron and Glenda Timkovich, Steve Beal, Heather and Lawrence Brunt, John Clifford, Bill and Brigette Collete, Jeff Hanak and Scott Reesman. Jodi is predeceased by mother Marlene Vanderstel and niece Katie Dragseth.

Jodi graduated from Kenawa Hills High School, in Grand Michigan in 1979. She originally attended Hope College in Michigan before transferring to the University of Colorado. She graduated from CU in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. Jodi had been accepted into the Florida Institute of Technology to pursue her doctorate degree as a Psychiatrist.

Jodi met her husband Joseph Ferris at a Bennigan’s in early April 1985 while she was out on a spring skiing trip along with visiting friends and her brother whom was living in Glenwood Springs. They hit it off almost immediately and danced the night away, making her day trip to ski out of Denver the following morning a difficult one at best. Jodi invited her soon to be husband to meet her in Glenwood Springs over the weekend and ski in Aspen with her and her friend Roger (whom she had traveled with from Michigan). Roger ultimately ended up being one of the best men at the wedding.

After the ski trip they stayed in touch over the phone throughout the remainder of the spring of 1985, and eventually talked to Jodi into coming back out to Denver over the summer to live and work while she saved up money for her Doctorate Program. By late summer Joseph knew Jodi was the girl he wanted to marry, so at a Crosby Stills & Nash Concert at Red Rocks in late August Joseph proposed to her as the sun set while listening to an amazing concert.

Knowing that Joseph was months away from being commissioned as an Army Officer with follow on orders to Fort Benning Georgia and then to Germany they had some decisions to make. One of which, was that Jodi wanted Joseph to have some hair for their wedding pictures, and two, a specific date in which to get married. And the only way we could control either of these two requests was to suggest planning their marriage before starting Infantry School at Fort Benning. With that decided, they settled on the 27th of December of 1985 as the wedding date.

Jodi had no clue what she was getting herself into as a newly wed Army Officer’s Wife. But she took on the challenge like she did with everything else in life with a sense of purpose and passion. They spent the first 9 months of their Marriage at Fort Benning Georgia, while he attended the Infantry Officer’s Basic Course, Airborne School, and Ranger School. Simultaneously, the wives of all the young 2nd Lieutenants were also indoctrinated into Army Officer protocols by the local Officer’s Wives Club.

Sometime between Airborne School and the start of Ranger School, their first blessing occurred (somewhat as a surprise) when Jodi became pregnant with otheir son, Derek. He was subsequently born in Ulm, Germany in the local German hospital (February 25th, 1987).

They spent three years in Germany, where they pushed Derek all over the landscape each weekend on the Volksmarches they attended along with a plethora of friends. Jodi’s mother also came to visit numerous times during our first tour in Germany. And one of my most memorable stories is of Jodi, Derek, and her mother Marlene, traveling all over western Europe shopping for lace, crystal and Steiff Stuffed Teddy Bears. On one of those occasions they got a letter in the mail with a very nice picture of Jodi, her mother in the front seat, and Derek in his car-seat as she was speeding through a construction zone. Needless to say it was an expensive speeding ticket. They also spent a good deal of the winter months driving back and forth from the northern alps where they did a lot of skiing together. This also included getting Derek on his first pair of skis as a toddler.

Upon their return to the United States, they were first stationed again at Fort Benning, Georgia for the Infantry Officer Advanced Course, with a subsequent assignment to Fort Campbell, KY and the 101st Airborne Division. This is where the saga begins of Jodi becoming a single care giver during Joseph's many “long” deployments to come. Simultaneously, they learned that Jodi was pregnant with their daughter Meagan in the summer of 1990. This was about the time that he deployed to Desert Shield and Desert Storm and would be gone for the next 7 months.

Beyond being pregnant, she had a three-year old son to contend within a town she was unfamiliar with. On top of this, she became the chief accountant and budgeteer, as Joseph unplugged from life as a family man and deployed for war. Not know at that point whether he would return and not having decided on a middle name for Meagan, Jodi suggested they drop the “e” from Joe and use his name for Meagan’s middle, thus that is how she became Meagan Jo Ferris.

Fortunately, Joseph would return to Fort Campbell 7 months later and only one day after the birth of their daughter. Of note here, in the small house that they rented in Clarksville, Jodi had taken over the master bedroom closet leaving the one extra room they had as the closet and junk room. Unbeknownst to Joseph in his absence, Jodi and her parents had turned his junk room/military gear into Meagan’s nursery and then stored all of his clothes up in the attic. So when he got home for the first time and while Jodi was still in the hospital with Meagan he could not find any clean clothes to wear, and it took a phone call to the labor and delivery wing of the hospital to figure out what had happened to all of Joseph's clothes.

Over the course of the next 3 plus years at Fort Campbell Jodi accepted the responsibility of being a Commander’s wife along with the trials and tribulations that it presented. This included being in charge of as many as 70 to 80 wives when Joseph's unit deployed (and that was often). Of the four plus years they were at Fort Campbell with the 101st, he was deployed for over three of those years all told.

In late 1994, they then moved to Minneapolis/St. Paul where they were assigned as part of a Readiness Group. Again, she found herself as the main caretaker of the kids, while he spent the weekends training with the National Guard and Reserves. And when he was not doing that she was supporting Joseph while he pursued his master’s degree. All of which she did unselfishly and without remorse. He was then again reassigned to Saudi Arabia on an unaccompanied tour which again left her alone and in charge of the kids for another year by herself. And as this tour wound down for him overseas, Jodi was busily selling the family home in Minnesota before their move to Atlanta.

They were reassigned to Atlanta Georgia in 1997. And over the course of the next two plus years Joseph spent two six-month deployments in Kuwait.

Our swan-song assignment was a trip back to Germany in 1999. This time to Oberammergau which is just up the hill from Garmisch and the Zuggspitz. This is where their son had the opportunity to participate in the Passion Play which is held every 10 years at the outdoor amphitheater in this little town of 5,000. This was an honor typically only bestowed upon local children of the town. They also spent a lot of time skiing together as a family, hiking in the hills. Additionally, they created some lasting memories with military service members and their families from all over Europe that were also assigned to the NATO School. Some of Jodi’s closest friendships were developed while they were in Oberammergau.

The last assignment was back to Fort Campbell, Kentucky where they purchased a house. And again shortly after arrival and before they could even get settled and household goods delivered, Jodi was left alone to take care of the kids and organize the inside of the house and do all the landscaping around the outside of the house without Joseph. His initial assignment to Taazar, Hungary to train the Free Iraqi Forces left her and the kids alone for six months. Then shortly after his return home (less than a month) he was then summoned to link up with his unit in Mosul Iraq where he spent another 10 months deployed. Then 14 months after our initial deployment to Iraq they were again assigned to Tikrit and Camp Speicher for another year. He finally redeployed in October 2006, and we decided as a couple it was time to retire from the military (this occurred in July 2007).

They purchased their home in Firestone Colorado and moved the family there in the fall of 2007. This was to be their retirement home, however in 2011, Joseph was laid off and again Jodi was reluctant but supportive of the need to move once again when he landed a job with the VA in Sturgis/Fort Meade, SD in 2012. During the first two plus years he lived as a geographic bachelor while Jodi held the fort in Firestone in his absence. Then in 2015 they moved to Fort Meade and occupied a set of government quarters (8,000 square feet) that was 106 years old. In the fall of 2017, Jodi was diagnosed with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (Stage IV). And throughout the next 3 and a half years Jodi battled to the very end. This included numerous radiation treatments, chemo infusion treatments, 7 gamma knife treatments, and daily oral chemo meds she took to prolong her life. All of which in the name of being there for them.

During the initial diagnosis of Jodi’s cancer and initial inpatient care in Rapid City, they were fortunate enough to meet a traveling surgeon while at Rapid City Regional Hospital. His home base was Colorado, and he made a quick assessment that Rapid City did not have the technical expertise to be able to help Jodi. He conveyed to them the need to move Jodi from South Dakota to UC Health Anschutz and a team of surgeons there that could effectively treat the cancer attacking Jodi’s spine as well as the other areas that it has metastasized to. This included an almost 12 hour surgery to relieve the pressure on her spinal cord and insert 11 rods to stabilize the upper area of her cervical spine. Upon completion of rehab and being discharged from the hospital they stayed with her brother Tom and his wife Tina for almost 6 months while Jodi did rehab and her initial radiation/chemo treatments.

Because Joseph was still working for the VA in Fort Meade and could not be here in Denver full time, his son Derek agreed to be his mothers primary care giver and roomy when he got them an apartment in Glendale, Colorado. Jodi and Derek lived together in this apartment from the summer of 2018 until his mother’s death on March 18th of 2021. Jodi was admitted to the hospital on March 10th after her last gamma knife treatment for observation and for follow up whole-brain radiation treatments scheduled for 11th, 12th, and the following week. Unfortunately, by Friday the 12th (her daughter’s birthday) it was determined the best course of action was to release Jodi from the hospital to home hospice.

They were able to get Meagan down here to Denver from Fort Meade the night of the 12th, when one of Joseph's colleagues Dr. Liz Pearl and her husband insisted on driving Meagan down here before the big weekend storm hit. Over the course of the weekend they had a birthday party for Meagan (bedside) and watched numerous Avalanche Games with all the family scrunched up on the bed next to her to watch the games.

Jodi’s passion’s included skiing, all sorts of crafting projects, and a love for sun tanning and the beach. She was also passionate about her sports teams, namely the Colorado Avalanche and the Michigan Wolverines (both football and basketball). In the years since she was diagnosed with cancer, we obtained season tickets to the Avalanche, which included many playoff games as well.

She was an amazing seamstress, making clothes for the kids (many of which were done in tandem with her Mother, Marlene when she was alive. Her talents included making professional quality curtains and draperies, knitting afghans, baby blankets and sweaters, macramé projects (planters and wall art), and needlepoint. In each and every case she was a perfectionist, even if it meant tearing apart two or three hours worth of work to fix a perceived error that to anyone else would not be noticeable.

Jodi will be dearly missed.

A Visitation for Jodi will be held Wednesday, March 24, 2021 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm at Olinger Highland Mortuary & Cemetery, 10201 Grant St, Thornton, CO 80229.

** Casual Attire – Please wear your Avalanche, Michigan or other Sports Gear**

A Celebration Of Life will occur Thursday, March 25, 2021 from 10:00am to 11:00am, 10201 Grant St, Thornton, CO 80229.

A Graveside Service will occur Thursday, March 25, 2021 from 12:00pm to 12:30pm at Mountain View Memorial Park, 3016 Kalmia Ave, Boulder, CO 80301.

A Reception will occur Thursday, March 25, 2021 from 12:30pm to 2:00pm at Crist Mortuary, 3395 Penrose Place, Boulder, CO 80301.

Serving as pallbearers are Derek Ferris, Tom Vanderstel, Brad Vanderstel, Nick Vanderstel, Kevin Dragseth, Kevin Kerswill, Jim Ferris and Jon Wines.

Contributions in Jodi's memory may be made to American Cancer Society, https://www.cancer.org/involved/donate.html.

Thank you to the Oncology Staff at UC Health.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.olingerhighland.com for the Ferris family.