Joan D. Edwards, 90, died peacefully at The Villa Rehab Center in St. Albans, Vermont on July 18, 2018 after a courageous battle with pneumonia and dementia. She was born in Canton, Ohio, on Sept. 12, 1927, to Robert Kenneth Dillon and Sara Katherine (Fretague) Dillon, and raised in Canton and later, Minerva, Ohio. Her brother, Robert W. Dillon of Palos Verdes, California, predeceased her in 2000.

Joan graduated from Minerva High School in 1944 and attended the College of Wooster. For two seasons, she proudly played saxophone with the Musical Majorettes marching band for the Cleveland Browns. Then, after transferring to Ohio State University in Columbus, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in music education in 1949.

After university and moving in 1950 with her parents to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Joan played bassoon with the Fort Lauderdale Symphony Orchestra and began a music teaching career that would span nearly five decades, much of it at Plantation Junior and Senior High School as Band Director, and later in Vermont as a music teacher in three Addison County elementary schools. "Mrs. Edwards" was much loved by her students, many of whom claim that she influenced their own successful careers in music, or that she inspired a lifelong love of all things musical and musical performance.

Joan leaves two sons, Robert (Bob) D. Edwards of Blackshear, Georgia, and Kenric (Rick) Edwards of Almonte, Ontario, six grandchildren in Georgia, Washington, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania, and Maine, and seven great grandchildren in Georgia, Maine, and Pennsylvania.

There are no calling hours; burial is in East Lawn Cemetery in Minerva, Ohio.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her memory to Homeward Bound (Addison County Humane Society), 236 Boardman Street, Middlebury, VT 05753 or to the charity of your choice that empowers students of music ability.

Arrangements by Gottschall Hutchinson Funeral Home, 206 East Lincoln Way, Minerva, Ohio.