Graduating from high school in Greer, South Carolina, where she was Homecoming Queen, she attended Lander College (now Lander University) and then transferred to the University of South Carolina in Columbia, graduating with a B.A. in Education in 1953. There she met her husband, James Joseph Gebhard. Married for almost 60 years, she took on the role of a military spouse as a newlywed. Their first overseas assignment in 1956 required them to sail across the Pacific Ocean where he was stationed at the U.S. Forces Japan Naval Base in Kami Seya, Japan. She supported her husband’s second career as a professor of Russian language and literature at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, where they made their home from 1964 to 2012. After her husband’s death in 2012, she moved to Auburn, Alabama, to live near her eldest daughter. 

The mother of four, Joan was completely devoted to her family. She collected pottery and prints and had an eye for beautiful interiors and clothes. An avid reader, she also enjoyed spending Saturdays rooting for her favorite college football teams, the Penn State Nittany Lions and the South Carolina Gamecocks. She was fiercely independent, living in her own house until her death. She battled illness and, in later years, more than one broken bone, with quiet strength and grace. She will be sorely missed.

She is survived by four children: Ann “Caroline” Gebhard, James Joseph Gebhard, Jr. (Patricia), Robert Sullivan Gebhard (Sallie Porter), and Elaine Marnell Gebhard (Ben King); five grandchildren: James Joseph Gebhard III, Madison Porter Gebhard, Bailey Grace Gebhard, Caroline Mackenzie King, and Connor Nicholas King; her brother, Capt. Jack Owen Sullivan; five nieces: Cathy Gebhard Zweig, Jean Gebhard McManus, Meg Gebhard, Elizabeth Gebhard, and Patricia Sullivan Stephens, and four nephews, Jack Sullivan Jr., Charles Sullivan, Jeffrey Sullivan, and Louis Gebhard, and other family members.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by the Parker-White Funeral Home in Ware Shoals. Memorial donations may be made to the Perpetual Care Fund, Mount Bethel United Methodist Church, where the service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 8. Visitation will be in the church at 1 p.m. Messages of condolence may be left at www.ParkerWhitePruitt.com