Joan Marie Ferran

Joan Marie Ferran, 84, passed away on Monday, February 6, 2017.

Visitation will be held on Friday, February 10, 2017 from 6:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M., with rosary at 7:00 P.M. at Providence Funeral Home Chapel.

Celebration of Life Mass will be held on Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 10:00 A.M. at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Taylor. Burial to follow at Assumption Cemetery in Austin.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Joan Brennan Ferran moved to Chicago, Illinois with her family at the age of 4. Being the baby of her family, she enjoyed the antics of her five older brothers and sisters. Mom attended Loyola University after high school to study social work. She met our father, Joseph Daniel Ferran, at a wedding that changed her life trajectory. She was a mother to seven rambunctious children and enjoyed all the trials and tribulations we brought home. Whether it was raising her kids on a farm in Chicago or packing up all our belongings for a big move to Texas, Mom was always ready for an adventure. For example, she spearheaded a trip to Foulk, Arkansas to find the legendary “Boggy Creek Monster. In Austin in the 80’s, she found a back road behind Bergstrom Air Force Base and parked her station wagon filled with six kids alongside the visiting Space Shuttle much to the chagrin of the security detail. She drove us down the ‘drag’ to celebrate UT Heisman winners and, if she heard an emergency siren, would spontaneously change course and drive us towards the action to check things out. One of her final adventures was participating in the recent Women’s March in downtown Austin reminding us all to follow our convictions.

Eventually, Mom worked outside the home as a nurse’s aide and later as an HR manager with the IRS. She made friends wherever she went. For someone who lost her entire family at a young age, Mom spent her lifetime expanding her definition of family by opening her heart and home to all the friends and loved ones of her children, even sponsoring a foreign exchange student from Iran for two years.

Mom was always up for lunch and a glass of wine on a patio and enjoyed shopping and making new friends on The Square in Georgetown, Texas. The last few years were difficult health wise for Mom, but she never lost her spunky spirit. She passed peacefully at home surrounded by her children and grandchildren and is now at peace, reunited with our Dad and her family. We will miss her dearly.

Mom was preceded in death by our father, Joseph Daniel Ferran, and our brother, Thomas Brennan Ferran. She is survived by her children: Mari-Ann Alexander, Joseph Ferran, Maureen Quay (Douglas), Daniel Ferran (Gilbert Davila) Eileen Silverthorn (Steve), and Kelly Guzzi (Charles) and her loving grandchildren: Neill Alexander, Carleen Ferran, Michael and Tom Quay, Emilio Ferran, Aniston ,Ty and Taryn Silverthorn, and Vincent , Graham and Connor Guzzi.