- Date Of Birth: August 7, 1932
- Date Of Death: October 9, 2022
- State: Colorado
Joanne passed away peacefully on October 9, 2022, at the age of 90, in Denver, Colorado. She is survived by her three children, Rex (Val) Rudy of Colorado Springs, Kelly (Catalina) Rudy of Taos, New Mexico, and Santiago, Chile, and Kristi Rudy of Denver, and two grandchildren, Sam (Katie) and Margaret Rudy.
Mary Joanne Damon was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa to Ralph Victor and Mary Ethel Broome Damon. She was preceded in death by her parents and older brother, Dennis “Denny” Damon. Joanne grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, but always dreamed of traveling, which she did extensively. In 1950 after marrying her first husband of nine years, William J. Rudy, who preceded her in death in 2021, Joanne’s travels began as she followed his Air Force career to Florida, Indiana, and New Mexico. While she loved New Mexico, as a single parent raising three children and following the end of a brief second marriage, she returned to Iowa in 1963 to be closer to family, including her mother and many aunts, uncles, and cousins in the Broome family.
Still not content with the cold and snow of Iowa, Joanne moved her family back to Albuquerque in 1967, where she worked as an executive secretary at the University of New Mexico and Kirtland Air Force Base. This is where she met, and in 1970, married Glen Butcher, an Army officer and single parent also of three children. After merging the two families and seeing the three oldest children off to college or to start families of their own, her opportunities for travel continued. Joanne followed Glen’s career to Okinawa, Japan, Clovis, NM, Houston, TX, Saint Louis, MO, and Bitburg, Germany, until they retired in Colorado Springs. Throughout her travels, Joanne fully immersed herself in the cultures, sights, and languages of all the places where she lived.
Joanne’s proudest life achievement was raising her three children whom she taught to be respectful, responsible, and self-reliant. But her lifetime passions were music and playing the piano. In addition to playing the piano, she taught herself the guitar, harmonica, clarinet, bongo and conga drums, and the Ukulele. Even when dementia made it difficult to read sheet music, Joanne continued to play piano into her last year of life through feeling the pieces she had practiced all her life. She was also an avid reader of books from history to religion, mysteries to politics. Ah yes, do not even get her started on politics! Joanne was unconventional for her times in many ways, particularly as it related to the traditional expectations of a wife and religious beliefs, and she was not afraid to speak her mind.
Finally, after three husbands, raising three kids and then living with her daughter for a brief time, Joanne began to live on her own for the first time in her life in 1999, at the age of 67. She purchased her own condominium and thoroughly enjoyed the solitary life of which she had always dreamed. However, as age and dementia caught up with her, she moved into assisted living and memory care at Eastern Star Masonic Retirement Campus where she continued to make an impression caring for less able residents, bringing laughter to staff with her unfiltered commentary, and playing the grand piano for all to hear.
