A visitation memorializing Juana Meadows is scheduled for Saturday, June 1, 2024, at 2:00 pm at the Craddock Funeral Home in Ardmore.

Juana Meadows was born Juana Maria Brown in Tulsa, Oklahoma on August 1, 1943, in the middle of a heat wave reaching 102 degrees Fahrenheit.  Air conditioning was rare in 1943, and certainly, the Browns had none in their home.  Whether it was a relief or a burden to deliver in such heat, there is little doubt that their firstborn child was received with joy by 19 year-old Bebe Brown and 24 year-old Odis Daniel Brown.  Three more girls were born to the Brown family over the next five years.  Were they trying for a boy?  No one knows, and Odie grew to be outnumbered in a household of five ladies.  He was always so proud of his family.

Diane was born 19 months after Juana; then, after a little gap (respite?) arrived Marilyn and Shirlee.  As the oldest, Juana was boss, if only in her own mind.  She was the organizer, a role she continued throughout her life.  Giving herself the central role, she would be the teacher to the class of three girls.  The two youngest girls were forever trying to keep up.  Juana told a story that she and Diane would get Marilyn and Shirlee to chase them around and around the house just by starting a run and shouting "can't catch us."  Of course, the little girls didn't want to be left behind, so they would make a mad chase to nowhere just to avoid being left behind.

The four girls formed a truly beautiful family.  They were doted on by Odie, Bebe and friends.  The family never had much extra money, but Bebe was an excellent seamstress, making all their clothes, and the girls were always the best dressed in the school.  At age 14, she caught the attention of Scott Meadows at Northside Church of Christ where the Meadows family had recently joined.  It didn't take long for them to become an item.  The families were pleased that the match happened in church.  And so, three years later, 17-not-quite-18-year-old Juana married 20 year-old ROTC student Scott Meadows on June 10, 1961.  After his graduation from the University of Tulsa, Juana followed Scott to his first duty station as Air Force 2nd Lieutenant Meadows at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina with toddler Scott Jr. in tow.  Shortly after, second son Brett arrived completing the family of four.

Juana and Scott were off on an adventure that took them to military assignments in Florida and Germany.  Military life took a more serious turn in 1968-69 when Scott went to Vietnam.  It happened that sister Diane's husband Steve was also in Vietnam, so the sisters returned home to Tulsa to live together while their husbands served in southeast Asia.  After Vietnam and Germany, Scott wanted to return to civilian life in his newly chosen field of psychology.  This new path brought them back to the University of Oklahoma.   Scott finished his PhD in psychology while Juana worked as a secretary, and when the degree was awarded the family moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma, where Scott began his long career as a counselor psychologist.

By this time, the 70s were well underway and the women's movement was bringing big changes.  She became known among her brothers-in-law as the family's "women's libber."  It was a gentle ribbing but it was not wrong.  Having enjoyed the role of officer's wife, she began searching for a career of her own.  The move to Ardmore had not been easy for her.  She was a cosmopolitan world traveler with a sense of style and an appreciation for the opportunities of the big city.  (Big by Oklahoma standards anyway, meaning Tulsa or Oklahoma City, if not London, Paris or Rome.)  Ardmore was not a perfect fit and she struggled to find a satisfying path for herself during her first few years of small town life.  Her path led her to nursing, then later to high school teaching and counseling.  In her final paid job before retiring, she was the founding director of the first adult day services program in Ardmore, providing enriching programming for adults with dementia and other forms of disability.  Her clients loved it and the families were so appreciative.  The first few years were difficult and filled with frustration in managing a merry-go-round of staff instability, but she eventually mastered the job and always looked back on her role with pride and satisfaction.  After retiring from her final career posting, Juana found many new friends as an officer with the county and state Democratic Party.  She was also active in the local AARP.  She was never satisfied to retire into a life of ease.

In her final years, Juana suffered greatly from the effects of radiation treatments taken in her thirties for Hodgkin's lymphoma.  Combined with surgeries and chemotherapy, she had been cured without apparent ill effects.  Thirty years later, she began suffering from painful degenerative changes to her back where it had been exposed to radiation.  Multiple surgeries left her with a web of hardware in her back that limited her flexibility.  The surgeries helped but were not a cure and she suffered greatly from nerve pain and loss of motor control in her right leg.  These changes contributed to severe degeneration of her right knee and she lost most of her mobility.  Frustrated with this loss, she chose to have knee replacement surgery.  She knew it would not remedy the nerve damage and pain, but she was hoping that a new knee would allow greater mobility.  She woke from knee surgery on March 20 very happy.  She was on her feet with a knee that, though swollen from surgery, looked normal, no longer twisted, and dysfunctional.

Juana never came home from the hospital.  Cascading complications ultimately left her with multiple organ failure and unresponsive to outside stimulus with failing heart, lungs and kidneys, the family was advised by doctors that she was very unlikely to recover, and so Juana entered into hospice care.  In the morning of May 24, the hospice team took over.  She was made calm and comfortable with medications and the ventilator was removed.  She passed quietly less than 30 minutes later.  After 80 years and nine months alive on Earth, Juana Maria Brown Meadows drew her last breath at 12:10 pm in hospital in Sherman, Texas, surrounded by family.