JoAnna Dale Beasley

VIRGINIA BEACH – JoAnna Dale Beasley passed away on June 28, 2022 in her own fashion.  She is survived by her loving husband, Dr. Walter Ewing Beasley, III, Captain US Navy (Ret.), her daughter Marie Amelia Johnston, son-in law, Milton Lynn Johnston, Jr. of Chesapeake, VA, daughter Candis Rose Beasley Edwards, Esquire and son-in-law, Charles Michael Edwards of Leawood, KS and her grandchildren, Captain Elizabeth Victoria Rose Johnston, US Army, Rebecca Marie Amelia Johnston, Milton Lynn Johnston, III “Trip”, Alexandra Dale Edwards, and Catherine Tate Edwards.  She is preceded in death by her beloved mother, Eunice Estelle Tate Dale of Florence, AL and father, Leo Benjamin Dale of Ocean Springs, MS.  

 JoAnna is a descendant of early French explorer Urbain Baptiste Bandrau Dit Graveline of Montreal, Canada, several Rev. War patriots including Capt. Waddy Tate of Caswell County, N.C., and War of 1812 war hero Juan de Cuevas of Cat Island, Mississippi.  She was passionate about genealogy and a longtime member of the Lynnhaven Parish Chapter of the DAR.

 JoAnna was born and raised in Florence, AL.  She graduated from Coffee High School and the University of Northern Alabama with a BS in Chemistry.  JoAnna worked as a hematologist at the University of Tennessee Medical School in Memphis, TN where she met and married her soul mate, Walter.  He joined the Navy and they led an adventurous life moving to various cities in the US and traveling to many countries in Europe and Asia.  They shared their love of travel and experiencing other cultures with their daughters, and over the years hosted several exchange students from Spain.

 She has a fighting spirit and lived her life on her own terms.  JoAnna survived childhood polio without limitations and breast cancer.  Her favorite songs were “My Way” by Frank Sinatra and “The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals.  She loved her family, her extremely vocal Siamese cat Mozart, jazz, opera, ABBA, Bob Marley, and Rolling Stones, live music, the Handy Festival, gardening, gardening clubs, conservation, recycling, planting trees, propagating English boxwood, composting, the beach, shelling, road trips, identifying incompetence, Colonial Williamsburg, New Orleans, Charleston, gin and tonics, playing bridge, death by chocolate, bourbon, bananas foster, traveling, experiencing other cultures and cuisines, baking complicated delicacies, cooking Creole dishes, Pride and Prejudice, Greek festivals, LSU football, Duke basketball, knitting, frequenting fiber festivals, running, learning French and Spanish, Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, watching the Vatican’s midnight mass, Veuve Clicquot, and caramel creams. JoAnna hated bad service, poor hygiene, lack of table manners, loud talkers, mouth breathers, laziness, weak coffee, bland key lime pie, nice people, and unskilled drivers.  

She was an extremely opinionated woman who suffered no fools gladly.  JoAnna loved fiercely and was fiercely loved in return.  She shall be missed and mourned like no other because she was truly one of a kind.  Please leave a condolence below for the family.