Carolyn Joann Henley, a Smith County native, a Wilson County land stomper, and a longtime resident of Murfreesboro, passed away peacefully on August 25, 2026, surrounded by love and friendship in her Assisted Living Community at The Pavilion in Smyrna at the age of 90.

Most knew her simply as Joann, although her mother and a treasured niece called her “Joan,” a few brave souls called her “Jojo,” and various suspicious and questionable boyfriends through her lifetime called her a variety of more creative names. Her favorite name was once “Mom” until it was replaced by “Grandma.”

She was a spicy and salty woman who used questionable means to get her way. She stole her first and only husband from the girl he planned to marry. She was known earlier in her life to have a continuous craving for cigars and took her youngest child to trashy movies. She was addicted to ice cream, television, and saucy conversations in equal parts. She was an incurable flirt, never caring about the age or marital status of her targets, or to which friend or family member they belonged. She did not believe in schedules, partying into the night and sleeping well into the day with no apologies. She was known to keep a fifth of Jack Daniels in her pantry and cards at the ready for a game she would certainly beat you at without apology. She loved to travel and left behind the urban legends of a 50-, 60-, and finally 70-something madwoman across multiple continents and countries. She even legendarily tricked a quite prominent political leader into kissing her at a book signing in a church and felt no remorse in bragging about it.

There are nuggets of fact in all of these stories and the entirety of who she would certainly have you believe she was, laughing at your reaction with that big head-thrown-back laugh of hers. But there was much more to her.

Joann was the product of a wonderful Smith County Dawson family and later influenced and embraced by an equally wonderful Henley family—two sides so tight you could not tell where one family ended and the other started. She was born in Rome, TN, the youngest girl and second-youngest of seven surviving children in a large, close-knit family of modest means. She graduated from Smith County High School in 1954 and soon made her way to Nashville, where she worked, made lifelong friends, and began the adventures that would define her. Through family connections in Shelbyville, she met Harry Henley, a young Air Force man home on leave. They married a few months later and spent the next twenty-six years building a life together across the world—Arkansas, Newfoundland, Orlando, Germany, Fort Walton Beach, Virginia, and Maryland, then finally back home to Middle Tennessee.

After Harry’s death when she was forty-eight, Joann chose a life of her own making. She never remarried and never wanted to. She settled into her condo in Murfreesboro in 1986 and filled it friends, family, and of course TVs. She worked for years as a bookkeeper, first at Watco in Shelbyville, later for Charles Thompson in Murfreesboro, then for her favorite professional stint of all with Doug Swan, CPA, where she developed friendships that remain today. She loved the general ledger and her 10-key calculator while privately cursing the computers that eventually arrived early on. Joann kept a house so orderly it would have impressed Marie Kondo and constantly donated things she was not using to organizations that could distribute them to needy families. There is nearly no evidence of her children’s childhoods other than pictures. Things were not meant to be kept; people were.

Joann was a master of practical jokes. She arranged for people to show up at others’ houses in full funeral dress, complete with wheelchairs and walkers, for their 40th birthdays. At Christmas she and her brother once exchanged a three-piece chicken dinner—three kernels of corn in a matchbox. She loved to travel with her sisters, the self-named Golden Girls (she was, of course, Blanche). She loved movies and, while she could still drive, saw at least one a week. She loved to visit nearby towns and catch every new restaurant with friends, and she loved St. Mark’s Methodist Church and her many years of Bible Study.

But the role she loved most was grandmother. She never missed a school event, a spelling bee, or a band concert of her grandchildren until she simply couldn’t go anymore. She showed up more faithfully than many parents.

Her mobility declined, and so as not to feel isolated, she chose to move to an Assisted Living Community where she was beloved and treated like family. She loved the staff and considered them her people. She called the community her home and never missed her condo.

This is who Joann really was. More than a funny story or anecdote, and more than the tough, unbothered exterior she sometimes wore. She was a woman who loved big and without conditions, and taught others by her extraordinary example how to be an imperfect person who loves fully.

Joann was preceded in death by her husband, retired USAF Master Sergeant Harry R. Henley; her mother, Ova Braswell Dawson; her father, William B. Dawson; her brothers Howard Dawson, Robert Dawson, and Hilary Dawson; her sisters Fannie Roberts, Doris Tyree, and Flora Caplenor; and her daughter-in-law Jennifer Jordan-Henley. She leaves behind her son Terry Jordan-Henley, her daughter Susan Henley Trammell, her grandchildren Ray and Eli Rotter, and a wide circle of beloved sisters-in-law, treasured nieces and nephews, cousins, and friends—a family that learned from her how to stay close across distance and time.

The celebration of her life will start at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, September 1, 2026, at Ligon & Bobo Funeral Home in Lebanon, Tennessee, with Rev. Jim Clardy officiating. Visitation will occur prior between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Burial will follow at the nearby Wilson County Memorial Gardens.

Joann was a lover of flowers and plants and would unabashedly welcome them. However, she was also a decades-long donor to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and a devoted member of St. Mark’s Methodist Church. She would be equally honored for those who prefer to make a donation in her memory to either of these wonderful organizations.

LIGON & BOBO FUNERAL HOME of Lebanon (615) 444-2142 www.ligonbobo.com