Joanne B. Ewing

Joanne Bacon Ewing, the mother of three children prominent in the arts and sports, died at her home in Mt. Pleasant, SC on Sept. 11, 2023 at the age of 96 after a long battle with arterial disease.

Joanne was born on Dec. 28, 1926 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Her mother died shortly after her birth and she was raised by her aunt, Florence Bacon, in Washington, DC. She attended the Holton-Arms school and graduated from public school where she was voted “the most beautiful girl of Central High.”

Her beauty took Joanne to unusual places: in Feb., 1945 at the US Naval Academy mess hall at the banquet on the night before the Army-Navy game, Joanne successfully impersonated a Naval Midshipman until she took off her cap to reveal long brown hair for a photograph of the caper that appeared in the naval academy “LOG” magazine.

Joanne wanted to be a pilot and an engineer. She learned to fly in Rockville, MD, and hoped to be one of the Women Air Service Pilots (WASPs) but the war ended before she could join. Instead, she studied engineering at the University of Maryland where she met her first husband, Edgar Calloway Hilley who she married in 1946. They had two children, Kathleen Ewing who became a prominent art gallery owner in Washington, DC, and Wayne Ewing who is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker. Both Kathleen and Wayne were legally adopted by Joanne’s second husband – Frank M. Ewing, who she married in 1965 – and took his last name for their own. She divorced Frank Ewing in 1974.

In 1966, Joanne gave birth to Andrew Ewing, now residing in Mt. Pleasant, SC, who is in the real estate business and is a record-holding race car driver (despite being a paraplegic from an auto accident) and a rescuer of dogs.

Joanne lived in Potomac, MD for many years and then moved to Shepherdstown, WVA. She was very interested in political affairs and supported the candidacy of Darrell V. McGraw for the West Virginia Supreme Court, despite the fact that she was quite conservative. Justice McGraw served on the Court from 1976 to 1988. Joanne was appointed by the Court to their Judicial Ethics Committee, where she served proudly for many years.

A burial service will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023 at Columbia Gardens Cemetery, 3411 Arlington Blvd., Arlington, VA at 1 p.m. The family asks that donations be made to animal shelters in lieu of flowers to honor Joanne’s love of animals.