Jo Ann Rankin Wigington

Jo Ann Rankin Wigington, 82, died February 6, 2016 at her daughter’s home in Middleburg, FL after a few months of failing health.

Jo Ann was born on February 19, 1933 on the Rankin Family Farm in Anderson County, SC, the daughter of George and Christine Griffith Rankin. When “Jo” was only 4, her mother died. She and her dad returned to his family’s farm where Jo Ann was raised by her beloved “Aunt Helen” and grew very close to her grandfather. It was he who began taking her to Clemson football games when she was only 6 years old. She would enjoy attending games for the next 53 years! Up until the last weeks of her life she talked about her daily walks and talks with her grandfather.

She attended Pendleton High School, then, received both her BA and Master’s Degrees from Furman University. From an early age she dreamed of being a teacher and would go on to teach English and Writing for almost 30 years. She truly had a love for her students and kept in touch with many of them for decades.

At a “Back to School” party at Mt Pisgah in 1953, she met a tall, handsome Clemson senior named John Robert Wigington. She and Robert married 6 years later, making their home in the Wren community where she taught school and he joined the County Soil Conservation Service after a stint in the poultry business on the family farm.

In addition to teaching, Jo Ann enjoyed time spent with friends and family …especially on the Rankin or Wigington porches. She was a leader in the Wren Homemaker’s Club, The Daughters of the American Revolution and an active member at Mt Pisgah Baptist Church, teaching in the children’s programs, presiding over the WMU and playing the piano for some 20 years.

Soon their home included two children: Theresa and John. It was a happy home in the country with extended family close by. Jo Ann stopped teaching for 7 years until her children started school. It was during these years that she began to hone her skills at writing. She was a contributor to magazines such as SC Sandlapper, The DAR, and Home Life, and published a weekly column in the local paper for many years.

As their children grew up and were finishing college, Jo Ann and Robert began to dream and talk about retirement and doing more around the home and land… but in 1985, Robert was killed in a tragic accident on the farm. During his 2+ months in ICU, Jo Ann rarely left the hospital. Sleeping on a pallet on the floor and showering there, she wanted to be there for the times he might awaken. Her faithfulness to him, and the steadfast love she showed during his last weeks and months left a lifelong impression on many.

After his death, she “went back to school” doing post master’s study at Clemson to become a “writing specialist”. In 1985, she was honored as an educator by Clemson University’s Phi Delta Kappa.

Then in 1990, she was faced with one of the daunting challenges of her life: advanced stage colon cancer. She stopped teaching and went through surgery and a lengthy round of radiation. Realizing the high likelihood of that particular cancer reoccurring, she made the hard decision to leaved her beloved SC and go and live with her daughter… thus, beginning the last stretch of her life, not as a teacher, but as “Nana”.

Her cancer did indeed reoccur in 1993 but being on chemo for 4 straight years never prevented Nanafrom reading to grandchildren, or getting down and playing with them on the floor. She rarely missed church. Eventually, though, the chemo could not keep the cancer at bay and her oncologist sent her to Duke where she underwent a radical amputation of her leg and hip, leaving her in a wheelchair for the last 2 decades of her life. Four of her grandchildren have never seen her walk and she never made it upstairs in the house she lived for 13 years… but she remained ever positive, optimistic, active and cancer free for 16 years (despite developing diabetes, loss of hearing and advanced dementia). Then at 80, she developed breast cancer. Once again she faced it bravely and continued on… Her lifelong love for writing became her “full time work”. Each day she would spend hours and hours and hours handwriting stories of her life and childhood, or family genealogy, into big white notebooks that she titled “Nana’s Memories”, leaving a legacy of faith, family and her life growing up on the farm and as a teacher.

During her later years, she also loved reading, letter writing, watching the birds at her feeder, the Atlanta Braves, the Clemson Tigers and going out to lunch. Ever wanting to serve, she would wheel into the kitchen each and every day asking how she could help… up to the very last day she was ever in her wheelchair.

To those that had the privilege of living life alongside Nana, even as dementia claimed more and more of her once quick and articulate mind, she remained kind, optimistic and loving… a great example of an excellent wife, mother and friend. Such a life devoted to others and accepting of God’s purposes is worthy of praise. Her children rise up and call her blessed.

Jo Ann is survived by her two children: Theresa Wigington Bowen and John Rankin Wigington and 7 grandchildren. She was preceded in death by husband, John Robert Wigington.Services will be held on Thursday February 11, 2016 at 4:00 PM at Mt Pisgah Baptist Church with burial in the church cemetery.The family will receive friends prior to the service on Thursday from 2:30 PM until 3:50 PM at the church.

In lieu of flowers:“The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8)Donations may be made “in honor of Jo Ann” to a missionary family that she loved and supported who are carrying God’s Word into an unreached area of Asia.

Make checks payable to: Pioneers (designate for Tom and Angie Matthews, and note in honor of Jo Ann Wigington) Send to: 10123 William Carey Drive, Orlando, FL 32832 or call (407) 382-6000 and ask for donor relations.

Condolences may be expressed online by visiting www.robinsonfuneralhomes.com or in person at Robinson Funeral Home-Downtown, which is assisting the family.