Joe Ann Stanford Mcelveen

Joe Ann Stanford McElveen, 78, of Winston-Salem, and formerly of Metter, Georgia, passed away unexpectedly on Monday, January 4, 2016 at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital. Known as "Jojo" to her family and new friends at Homestead Hills in Winston, Joe Ann was born on 1937 in Atlanta, Georgia to the late Robert Wallace and Flora Celeste Eaves Stanford. At age eighteen, Joe Ann married her beloved, the late Olliff Eugene McElveen, and later moved to Metter, Georgia where they lived together for over 55 years. Two years after Olliff passed, Joe Ann made the decision to leave what had become "her hometown" of Metter, and to move to Winston Salem, NC, where as "Jojo" she made many new and good friends. As a young woman, Joe Ann loved dancing, reading and writing poetry. After moving to Metter, she worked at Durden's Department store in bookkeeping, and later moved to Metter High School where she worked as an office aide and served as the High School Cheerleading Sponsor. Full of energy, great ideas and fun, Joe Ann helped bring many good times, Spirit Sticks and compliments to the cheer squad, and much fun was had on cheerleading trips and on that little minibus together. Joe Ann later took a job in the Office of the President at then Georgia Southern College (now University), where she enjoyed so much working as an Office Administrator, the position from which she retired in the early nineties. During her working years, Joe Ann raised two children, encouraging and supporting them in every endeavor, from school work to sports, from football to basketball to cheerleading and dance, she didn't miss a thing and was involved in it all; all the while continuing to read, paint, write poetry, play boogie-woogie on the piano, and sing loudly.

After her retirement, Joe Ann and Olliff had grandchildren and took up full time grandparenting and golf, and many a fine time was had on the golf cart with "MacMac and Jojo" back on the marsh holes at St. Simon's Island and on Willow Lake course, going "HiHo Silver away" over the course "hills." A great cook, Joe Ann's grandkids would sweet talk her in order to get her to make fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, or porcupine meatballsa