Joanna Williams Poor

Joanna went home to be with her Savior, Jesus Christ, on Monday, the 11th of December 2023. Her sudden cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage treated at Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center. Joanna was 86 years of age and a longtime resident of Houston. She was born in Jacksonville, Texas, as the daughter and only child of Audell Clara Cockrell of Magee, Mississippi and Joe Bell Williams of Frankston, Texas, on the 12th of November 1937.

As a child Joanna picked cotton and as a teen packed tomatoes in post-Depression East Texas. Frankston at the time had a population of only 990, so all of her education through 12th grade took place in a single schoolhouse. Joanna excelled in her classes, played basketball and graduated at the age of 17. The family matriarch, Great Aunt Carrie May Dickson of Athens, Texas, promised to pay her tuition if she was accepted to nursing school.

Joanna then moved to Houston to enroll in the Lillie Jolly School of Nursing. Upon graduation in 1958, she worked nights as head nurse on the Memorial psychiatric floor, then in labor and delivery and as a specialized surgical nurse. In 1961 she started her “best job ever” as the first RN in the Baylor College of Medicine TIRR’s cystic fibrosis program. Her boss was legendary pediatric pulmonologist Dr. Gunyon Harrison. Two years later, her future husband, Charles, came to TIRR as a patient for a then-experimental spine surgery to correct severe scoliosis from childhood polio. A mutual friend introduced them and nine months later they were wed in Kansas City, Missouri, on the 1st of February 1964.

They then moved to Houston where Charles had been hired as a vocational rehabilitation specialist at Baylor’s TIRR Hospital. Charles joined Joanna as a member of First Baptist Church where they served the Lord diligently in various capacities over the next nearly 60 years. They became proud parents of a son in 1967 and a daughter in 1970. Joanna was an active voice in the FBC choir and went on various foreign mission trips to help spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. She was a teacher in the FBC preschool Sunday School and wrote curriculum for the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville. Tragically in 1991, their daughter Julianna died from bronchioalveolar lung cancer despite aggressive treatment. In 1999, FBC named their counseling center after Juli in honor of Charles, a co-founder, and Joanna. In 2009, Joanna felt led by the Lord to start a ministry to help mothers grieving the death of their child. Open to mothers of all faiths, or no faith, Sisters in Support is a Bible-based 12-week grief course that she directed up until the time of her death. Joanna was invited by her alma mater, which had become Houston Baptist University (now HCU) Nursing School to be a yearly speaker on the history of nursing. She was an honored recipient of HBU’s Margaret Newman Outstanding Alumnus Award. Joanna served as Chaplain on the HBU Dean’s Development Council Executive Committee. She was also a regular donor to the Guild of HBU’s charitable activities and scholarship programs.

Joanna loved playing solitaire, oil painting landscapes, musical theater, calligraphy, singing and playing hymns or classical music on her baby grand piano. She had a playful spirit, could turn anything into a game and could really make you laugh with her many stories and East Texas colloquialisms. There was truly no one else like Joanna Williams Poor.

Joanna adored and was absolutely devoted to her husband of 59 years, Charles, who predeceased her on the 27th of August 2023. She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Dr. Philip Williams and Yelena Poor of Sacramento, California; cousins, Richard Saunders and his wife Patricia of Frankston, Texas, Dee Ann Saunders Dalton and her husband Steve of Plano, Texas, Mandy Moore Tally of Frankston, Texas, Wendy Baron of Houston, Texas, June Carol Burnham and her husband Tod of Nashville, Tennessee, and Maj. Gen. William Burton Davitte of Saint Simons Island, Georgia; her brother-in-law, Larry Poor and his wife Cindy of Tulsa, Oklahoma; and sister-in-law Carol McCabe and her husband Bob of Palm Springs, California, as well as many beloved nieces and nephews both hither and yon.

Philip and Yelena Poor would also like to publicly thank Carolyn Barr, Rosa Waters, Johnnie King, Julie Berzins, Linda Brunson, Robb and Erika Brunson, Carolyn and Steven Breed, Roger Bridgwater, Bill Heston, Drew Walters and Houston's First Pastor Gregg Matte and Pastoral Care's Dau Ayub and Richard Bosquez, Madeline Goldsmith and the Forum at Memorial Woods Five Star Senior Living, Memorial-Hermann Memorial City Medical Center and Michael Lombard of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons Funeral Directors for their loving care and support during this difficult time.

The memorial service is to be conducted at one o’clock in the afternoon on Wednesday, the 31st of January, at Houston’s First Baptist Church, 7401 Katy Freeway in Houston, where Pastor Gregg Matte is to officiate.

Immediately following, all are invited to greet the family during a reception at the church.

In lieu of customary remembrances, the family requests with gratitude that charitable contributions in her name be directed to either the Julianna Poor Memorial Counseling Center at Houston’s First Baptist Church, 7401 Katy Frwy, Houston, TX 77024; to the Julianna Poor Early Childhood Education Scholarship Fund or the Philip W. Poor, M.D. Endowment Fund, both at Oklahoma Baptist University, 500 West University, Shawnee, OK 74804.

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