Jo Harrison Obituary

Harrison
Jo Ann
Harrison
May 27, 1942
January 8, 2026

Jo Ann Harrison, an extraordinary woman filled with grace, grit and laughter, died unexpectedly on January 8th, 2026 in the 84th year of her life and the 63rd year of her marriage to Roger Harrison of Colorado Springs. Both her son, Scott Harrison, and her daughter, Emily Harrison were present with her husband to fill her last waking hours with love and comfort. She is now with her third child, Benjamin, the sorrow of whose death never left her.
She lived, as she often remarked, a full and fortunate life. Born in Oceanside, California, she graduated as an RN from the San Jose Hospital School of Nursing, flew briefly for Pan Am in its glory years, and subsequently earned her BSN from Catholic University. As the wife of a foreign service officer, she moved with her family to Manila, from there to Warsaw, then to Oxford, then London, to Tel Aviv and finally to Amman, Jordan where her husband was Ambassador during the first Gulf War. There were stops in Washington DC and Colorado Springs along the way.
That meant that every few years she had to recreate, from scratch, a home for her family, often in foreign places, sometimes amidst war and threats of assassination. This in itself is an extraordinary achievement and one too often taken for granted.
So it is the more remarkable that everywhere she lived, and in every year of life, she found ways to share her skill, her compassion for the sick and dying, her inventive mind, her bravery and her boundless good spirits with those most in need of grace. This was true when she was among the first visiting nurses to serve the eastern plains of Colorado, and again as a visiting nurse confronting the AIDS epidemic in downtown Washington DC. It was true when she became a nursing sister at Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, and then transitioned to hospice nursing at St. Joseph's Hospice in London, the prototype for the modern hospice movement - all the while living the life of a diplomat's wife.
Many nights in London she would go from a diplomatic reception to the mean streets of Southwark or Wandsworth to be at the bedside of someone in the last moments of life - then back home at dawn to find her family waiting for breakfast.
Never was her spiritual generosity more evident than in Jordan during and after the First Gulf War. There, with the war raging, she went among 350,000 refugees, most in the arid no man's land between the Jordanian and Iraqi borders. No one had thought of insulin for the diabetics or sanitary supplies for the tens of thousands of women stranded in the heat and sand with their children. She overcame squeamishness and bureaucratic obstacles and organized a supply line to provide those items and more, saving many lives in the process.
In the aftermath of the War, she called on her hospice experience and her considerable powers of persuasion to found the first hospice in the modern Middle East. The "Hospice of the Comforter" in Amman exists as a monument to her.
In midlife, Jo Ann became a Catholic, and later a Catholic Chaplain and Oblate to the sisters of the Bennett Hill Monastery.
These are among the things she loved: her husband, her children Scott and Emily and their spouses Amy Randers Harrison and Rich Maves, her grand daughter Bailey Harrison Maves, her nieces Ellen and Ashley Jennings, her grand nephew Lonnie Harrison McCane, her cousins Judy and Diana, her long ago basset hound Dolly, her quarter horse, Chief and, in recent years, her home and fireplace and Irish murder mysteries on Netflix. She and her husband spoke of their love for each other every day of their 64 years together.
Whenever she was praised during her long years of service she always said it wasn't her but the Holy Spirit working through her. Now, those who loved and grieve for her take solace in the sure and certain knowledge that the Holy Spirit is with her, welcoming his servant Jo Ann to glory.

Funeral services have not yet been scheduled. Her family requests that, in lieu of flowers, contributions be sent in her name to the Colorado Springs Therapeutic Riding Center (cstrc.org)