JoAn W. Boggs

JoAn Whitehorn Boggs (2/15/1929 - 3/16/2023) was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1929. When she was five weeks old, the stock market crashed, precipitating the Great Depression. Born into a well-placed physician’s family, she benefitted from a higher quality of life than most.

Her father was renowned psychiatrist/educator, John Clare Whitehorn, who graduated from Harvard Medical School on a full scholarship. By the time JoAn was a little girl, her dad was a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital (one of the first mental asylums in the US, founded in 1811) in Waverley, Massachusetts. JoAn had fond memories of playing on the hospital grounds: meadows and ponds, livestock grazing, and interacting with the patients whose handlers were happy to have a little girl come and chat up their clients so they could take a break. JoAn had two older brothers, Richard and Alfred. She was closer in age and temperament to her second brother “Allie.” Both were interested in art. Their mother, Jeannette Miller Whitehorn was a medical illustrator who played the flute, as did JoAn, and they played duets together. JoAn spent summers at a girls’ camp, where she loved to paddle canoes, and be part of a large group of girls doing typical activities: singing, crafts, bonfires and tent camping. She was a craftsperson with a deep appreciation of nature, who loved to be outdoors camping and hiking.

In 1938, her father was hired to head the Psychiatry Department at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. It was there that JoAn would meet the young man who she would later grow up to marry. Her brother Richard was involved in a group of youngsters putting out a student newspaper, and when they needed a place to put the printing press, her father gave them his basement. The young man, Stephen “Taylor” Boggs, was a friend of Richard’s.

JoAn went to primary school in St. Louis. By 1941, family was moving again as her father had accepted a new position as the Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. JoAn thought the people in her new community were “snobs.” She had trouble relating to her new classmates. In high school, she studied German, a strategic language in 1941, played flute and became the editor of the school yearbook (and made a good friend in her co-editor). She defied cultural norms and cut her hair short, and wore blue jeans instead of dresses to school. For college, she returned to St. Louis, to Washington University and moved into a dormitory with two roommates, one of whom became a lifelong friend and fellow artist (Aline Feldman). JoAn got a BS in Sociology and went on the attain a Masters degree in Anthropology.

JoAn was married in 1948 at age 19 to her first sweetheart, Stephen Taylor Boggs. She had to wait until after he returned from active duty in Europe in WWII, and completed his anthropology degree summa cum laude from Harvard (class of ’45), and another year spent touring post-war Europe (the grand tour was considered an essential part of completing one’s education). Finally, they were together and where did they go? To perform field work in cultural anthropology among the Ojibwa tribespeople of Lac de Flambeau, Wisconsin and Berens River, Manitoba, Canada for two years (1950-1952). They camped, fished, hunted, harvested wild rice and maple syrup. And they studied the differences in how the US versus Canadian governments treated these two groups of indigenous people. Because they possessed a vehicle, a rare luxury, they were elected to get folks to the various ritual festivals held on very rural reservations, carrying the big drums in their little car.

Eventually, the fieldwork got done, the dissertation got written and JoAn’s husband was hired by Stanford University in California to teach their first course on Ethnic Relations (early in the Civil Rights era). JoAn and Steve’s first child was a boy, Christofer, born in 1954, followed by a daughter, Ellen, in 1956. Steve then took a position at the National Institute of Mental Health and the family moved back east again to Bethesda, MD where third child/second son, Andrew, was born. Steve was a social scientist conducting surveys of workmen and had to travel occasionally. It was sometimes isolating for JoAn, although they were meeting colleagues and making new friends. To keep busy, as if having three children wasn’t enough, JoAn started a business framing artwork for artist friends and decorators. The family was active with camping, hiking, outings, museums, galleries, and other creative pursuits like the Jerry Lewis penny fair fundraiser the family held in the front yard. She arranged painting lessons for her son Christofer and became so fascinated watching him that she began painting herself, and continued to paint more and more throughout her life. There was a creek in front of the house for the kids to play in and a swimming pool at the end of the block. Suburban life at its finest! All her life, JoAn was battling depression, but you’d never know it by the energy she brought to daily living. She was active for social causes, mentoring African-American kids at Kengar’s after school center, and creating a library in a socially disadvantaged community. (Both of these communities contained the descendants of Maryland’s slaves.) She belonged to a classical music group, where she played flute. She encouraged her daughter Ellen’s musical abilities which later led to an acting career in New York; she encouraged Christofer’s interest in shell collecting, which later led to his career in marine biology; she encouraged Andrew’s interest in photography and camera repair, which led to his career in cybersecurity systems architecture.

In 1966, when Christofer was 12, Ellen was 10 and Andrew 8, Steve got a teaching offer at the University of Hawaii. Alan Howard, a student of Steve’s at Stanford, recruited Steve to help with a study of cultural impacts on education in Hawaiian communities. JoAn went to work on a study with Ron Gallimore and Cathie Jordan on how peer and sibling assistance helps Hawaiian children achieve better success in standard English-speaking schools. Gallimore credited her with designing a better methodology for the study. The family was excited by the opportunities provided by the move to Hawaii. What they gave up in trips across the continental US to visit far-flung relatives, they gained in trips to explore the outer islands (Maui, Kauai, Molokai), always exploring trails, beaches, volcanos and waterfalls. JoAn hiked many a mile and encouraged her family in Haleakala, saying, “Just over the next rise, guys.” And they often journeyed back to the mainland in summer to visit family and camp in national parks and forests.

Once the children were all high school age, or in college, JoAn decided to go back to college herself, earning a second Masters degree, this time in Social Work. She got a job with the Arthritis Center, where she counseled clients and educated people about the limitations of living with rheumatoid arthritis, a very debilitation disease. One of her great successes was creating and illustrating a pamphlet on the possible sexual positions an RA patient could achieve comfortably. She also was instrumental in creating the Handi-Van program to make doctor’s appointments accessible to the disabled in Honolulu. She traveled in the Pacific to Palau, Samoa and Ponapei to provide care for RA patients in those areas. Once she retired and she and Steve were able, they traveled to California, and the Pacific Northwest, to the desert Southwest, to Europe and finally, to her great joy, JoAn went to China at the tender age of 79, fulfilling a lifelong dream! She had been captivated by the idea when as a little girl her traveling Uncle Charlie brought her the gift of a pair of Chinese silk pajamas!

As JoAn and Steve aged, they moved from the Manoa Valley house near the university (and JoAn’s beloved crafts group at the Lyon Arboretum), to a condo in Kaneohe (where she belonged to a Tai Chi group), to the senior living community at Pohai Nani. They made many friends there, and kept in touch with lifelong friends, while often entertaining travelers who would come to see them. They always held friends in high esteem. Both JoAn and Steve had their way of affirming other people, making them feel seen and heard. They believed that society should work to improve the lives of all of its citizens. They were a loving couple who actively worked on strengthening their relationship, and their relationships with others. If ever anyone needed a caring friend, the Boggses were there for them. JoAn Whitehorn Boggs became a popular resident at Pohai Nani. Folks there were happy to share an elevator with JoAn, because she remembered them, their family members and their life stories. She would always flash one of her amazing smiles and say, “Good to see you!”

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