Stevensville – Mrs. JoAnn Notti, 86, passed away peacefully on October 20, 2020, due to complications following open-heart surgery in Salt Lake City, Utah. JoAnn was born November 3, 1933, in St. Regis, Montana, to Carl Gustafson and Mae Finstad. JoAnn spent her childhood in Helena, where she attended primary school and graduated from Helena High School in 1952. During her high school years, she worked as an usher at a movie theater. When JoAnn was 18 years old, she moved to Hollywood, CA, with a best friend with the dream of becoming a court stenographer. She worked for a short time at Robinson’s May and then returned to Montana. In November of 1953, she married John Egisto Notti, a marriage that lasted 65 years until John’s passing in 2019.
JoAnn was a very active, creative, adventurous wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and a true friend to many. Those who knew her best nicknamed her the “energizer bunny,” she was always busy doing something.
In 1959, she boldly boarded a train in Helena, Montana with three children under the age of five, to join her husband in Anaheim, California where he had taken an electrical engineering job in the aerospace industry. There JoAnn embarked on this next stage of her life’s adventure creating a home and raising her six children. During her busy life JoAnn found time to work at a travel agency, participate in bowling leagues, oil painting, gardening, sailing, camping, traveling, playing golf, sewing heirloom-quality quilts that won awards at county fairs, and baking her family-favorite holiday cinnamon rolls. In the early 1980’s JoAnn moved with her husband John to Kalamazoo, Michigan where she again created a loving home and again developed new friendships and activities.
When JoAnn moved back to Montana and settled in Stevensville in the late 1980’s with her husband, she immediately got involved in the Stevensville Garden Club, was a member of the Quilting Club, and was the Garden Club’s Blue Star Memorial Chairwoman and served as Master of Ceremonies during the dedication.
JoAnn is survived by her four sons and their wives; Dan and Pamela Notti, John and Guillermina Notti, Eric and Carol Notti, Peter and Janet Notti; her daughter Janette Dunn and her husband Clif and her daughter Rachel Notti, as well as her 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, all of whom she loved and touched deeply.
A celebration of her life will be held Saturday afternoon, November 14, 2020, at 1 p.m. at Whitesitt Funeral Home in Stevensville, MT. JoAnn’s children and their families will host a reception for extended family and friends at the Kootenai Creek Village Clubhouse following the ceremony. Condolences and memories may be shared with the family at www.whitesittfuneralhome.com.