Long time Island resident and artist Joan Morrow died Aug. 7, 2006, in Seattle of complications from Alzheimer’s. She was 84 years old.

She was born Joan Hach in New York, N.Y. on July 1, 1922. She grew up in Lionia, N. J.

Early in her primary school education, teachers noted her keen intellect and artistic talents. Art became her lifelong and enduring love and interest.

Joan attended William & Mary College in Williamsburg, Va., before transferring to the University of Michigan where she received a degree in psychology. She went on to earn a master’s in Art History at the University of Chicago where she graduated with honors.

Following graduation she began her teaching career.

During WWII she served in the Army at Valley Forge Hospital as a recreational therapist to help wounded soldiers. A humanitarian at heart, this experience permanently turned her off wars of any kind. When the war ended Joan spent a summer bicycling throughout Europe.

On Oct. 9, 1954, she married Jack Morrow in Chicago, Ill. and they started a family.

In June of 1966 both Jack and Joan quit their jobs, sold their home and bought a trailer and headed west seeking a change to a more rural lifestyle. Their summer sojourn landed them on Vashon where Joan’s parents had moved from Oak Park, Ill. in the late 1950s.

They bought acreage on Maury Island and had a house built. July 20 marked 40 years that they had lived on Vashon. The beautiful scenery became the subject of many of her paintings.

In 1966 she was hired by the Tacoma School District to teach middle school art, which she did until her retirement in 1984.

She was an inveterate reader and had an insatiable intellectual curiosity. She took correspondence courses to learn Greek, spoke and read German and studied writings of philosophers, loved architecture, Greek Mythology and took courses on new art techniques.

As an artist she mastered many media, including oil paintings, pastels, drawing, sculpture, wood carving and etchings.

Her interest in travel took her many places around the world with family members. She traveled to Greece, Thailand, Italy, Morocco, Spain, England, Ireland, Aruba, as well as the Hawaiian and US Virgin Islands. Besides art and intellectual pursuits, she was devoted to her children.

A brother, William Hach, died in 1998. Her eldest son, John William Morrow, died in 2004.

Survivors include her husband Jack Morrow of Vashon; son, Evan Morrow of Vashon; daughter Kathy Doubt of West Seattle and granddaughter, Alexandra Doubt, nephews William Hach of Baltimore, Md., and Cameron and niece Dawn Hach of Chicago, Ill.

A memorial service will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 19, at the Vashon Island Funeral Home. She will be interred at the Vashon Island Cemetery.