Joanne Braun, 70
Joanne Louise Braun died Feb. 7, 2025, due to complications from ALS.
She loved life and lived fully to her life's completion. She loved her friends, her family and, maybe more than anything, movement in nature. She loved swimming in lakes, rivers and oceans, but especially over the past three years — Lake Couer d’Alene. She did many long swims and treasured her local swimming group and community. She also loved cycling and went on too many amazing rides to begin to list, but perhaps the most memorable of which was the Great Divide Ride, which she did with her dear friend, Sarah Park.
She was born Sept. 5, 1954, in Portland, Ore., to Gordon and Mary Nell Braun. The second child of three. Jeanne — her older sister by 14 months and her younger brother, David, by two years. They lived in Portland, Ore., then Moses Lake, Wash., following the calls of the Lutheran pastorship that their father had. She spoke with joy, hilarity and fondness about her childhood, swimming in Moses Lake and various shenanigans swimming in culverts and drainage ditches with friends. She also joined the Moses Lake swim team in her early teen years.
Upon graduating from Moses Lake High School, she went on to Pacific Lutheran University, made more friends and continued her love for movement and helping others. She played on the field hockey and swim teams. She graduated with a degree in Nursing. She also met a handsome, silly kindred spirit and fellow Lutheran pastor's kid, Mark Brandt. Upon graduating and taking a position in nursing in Liberia, they corresponded, fell in love and married upon her return.
They supported each other in their pursuits of higher education and vocational paths. She attended Arizona State University and became a Family Nurse Practitioner — something she took great pride in. She loved medicine, the human body, health and caring for families and people across the lifespan. She had a special touch with young kids and women. She worked in Orofino, Idaho, for just shy of 20 years, and she and Mark raised three kids — Isaac, Hannah and Leah — in the small, rural town.
She never lost her dreams of seeing the larger world, and once the children graduated, she jumped at the chance to work internationally and secured a job as a medical officer in the US State Department — first in Nepal, then Pakistan, Czechia and finally Bolivia. She found joy in independence, travel, biking adventures, learning other cultures and experiencing the wider world. She met Peter Cook during this time, and they enjoyed a beautiful relationship built around movement and travel.
She leaves a legacy of living adventurously, creating connections with others all over the world and putting energy toward making the world better than how she found it.
Special thanks to Mom’s thoughtful, steadfast baking and gardening companion, Michael Lee. Special thanks to Mom’s Cd'A community of swimmers and gardeners. Special thanks to all who knew and loved Mom — in the end, seeing how much others loved her was one of the greatest gifts.
You will be missed by many. You will be remembered by all who met you. We will miss you deeply.