Jo Margaret Farris

Jo Margaret Gore Farris was born in 1932 in Clovis, NM. She died in Albuquerque, NM on the afternoon of Saturday, 9 June 2018 from a combination of heart and kidney failure on the ninth day of her stay in the Lovelace Hospice facility. The family was surprised at the rapidity of her serious symptoms and resulting disability.

Her Memorial Service will be held at 10:30 AM on Wednesday, 20 June 2018 at the Albuquerque First Presbyterian Church at 215 Locust Street NE. The service will be followed by a reception to greet Jo Margaret's family.

She is a third generation New Mexican. Both sets of grandparents, GORE and KEITH, homesteaded Eastern NM when NM was still a Territory. Her father was a Star Route Carrier in Eastern NM, which means he drove the mail to remote towns under contract to the US Postal Service.

Jo Margaret was the oldest of four children. Her three brothers predeceased her but two sister-in-laws survive her: Katie Snodgrass GORE of Wickenburg, AZ and Mary Kennedy GORE of Las Vegas, NV. She is also survived by her husband, John Adam FARRIS, all four children and all nine grandchildren and their spouses.

When her father's USPS contract changed, the family moved from Clovis to Roswell, NM where she had her education through grade nine. Then they moved to Artesia, NM where she attended high school. Artesia and Roswell are in the Pecos River Valley in Southeast NM.

On her sixth birthday in Roswell, Jo Margaret had her first violin lesson. She was blessed with an excellent teacher, Theodore Roosevelt BEST, with whom she studied for twelve years. She excelled in the violin resulting in a full music scholarship to the U of NM, where she studied with the famous teacher Kurt FREDERICK. She also played in UNM's first string quartet which traveled the State giving concerts to promote the UNM Fine Arts Program. For the summers of 1952 and 53 she was awarded a full Scholarship to the Aspen Institute of Music Festival in Colorado where she got to play in the orchestra and have lessons with the famous Szymon Goldberg. For her senior recital at UNM, she played the Brahms Violin Concerto. She joined the UNM Chapter and remained a member of the SAI Music Sorority throughout her lifetime.

Jo Margaret GORE studied Fine Arts and John FARRIS was in Engineering. They met in their junior year at a committee meeting where she was a substitute and the rest was history. They were married Easter 1954 during their senior year at UNM at the Artesia, NM First Presbyterian Church by the Rev. Ralph L. O'Dell.

Jo Margaret and John moved to Dayton, Ohio for his two-year Air Force assignment and she played in their symphony.

In the fall of 1956 John was hired by Pall Corporation located in Glen Cove, Long Island, NY. They moved to an apartment in Glen Cove, then to a small house in Oyster Bay, LI, NY. Jo Margaret played professionally in the local symphonies and in various chamber music groups including The Paumanok Chamber Music Ensemble. She also played chamber music almost every week for fun. She often performed solo concerts in her home for family, friends and neighbors as well as playing solos in the Oyster Bay and Huntington Presbyterian Churches.

John's job change with Pall Corporation resulted in the family moving to Grand Rapids, MI for four years (1968-1972). While there, Jo Margaret was the Assistant Concertmaster of their Symphony. At Aquinas College she and three other teachers developed a Suzuki violin program for preschool to sixth grade children. It became quite successful in the 4 years she was in Grand Rapids and continued after she left. She also organized a string quartet to play school concerts to introduce classical music to students. She taught a few of the students at Grand Valley State College where her string quartet was in residence.

When the Farris's returned to Long Island, NY, summer 1972, she resumed her previous musical activities. On LI she played in a professional string quartet called L'Amore di Musical Ensemble. This group played regular concerts on LI and also in NYC and VT. She also played in a professional piano trio called the Huntington Trio and in the OSKO String Quartet as well as in the North Shore Pro Musica, all of which performed throughout Long Island.

She was co-administrator (for two years) and an enthusiastic participant in the Bennington Chamber Music Conference held each summer in VT. In addition, for many summers she attended the invitation-only Chamber Music week named "Heaven" in New England where she played about eight hours per day. These were the highlights of her musical year. She enjoyed playing symphonies and operas, etc., but her greatest love was playing chamber music.

She toured parts of Switzerland, Germany and Italy with the East Swiss Chamber Orchestra directed by Urs Schneider. She was also one of the two soloists for the Bach Double Violin Concerto for concerts at the City Center in NYC and in Huntington, LI, NY.

She also appeared as soloist with: the Suffolk Symphony, the New Chamber Orchestra, the L.I. Training Orchestra, the Albuquerque Civic Symphony and the UNM Concert Band.

ACMP (Amateur Chamber Music Players) is an organization that she was an active member of that gave her access to musicians worldwide. When she was available to travel with John, she played chamber music all over the USA as well as in Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe.

John retired in 1998 and they returned to Albuquerque in 1999. Jo Margaret was a substitute player for the various symphony orchestras including the New Mexico Symphony (Albuquerque), Santa Fe Symphony, Roswell Symphony, San Juan Symphony in CO, in addition to helping organize the Juniper Hills String Quartet to do concerts. And of course, solo work for churches and other organizations continued. She organized and hosted an annual Bach Brandenburg Concerto Festival at her home in Albuquerque, inviting thirty or so of her fellow musicians to play all of these concertos in a single afternoon followed by a potluck feast. Jo Margaret continued to play violin and viola, mostly for fun, and she played several concerts with the Juniper Hills String Quartet. When rheumatoid arthritis started badly affecting her hands, she was forced to stop playing. She really missed her previous musical activity and contributing to the musical culture of Albuquerque.

In Albuquerque, Jo Margaret and John were also active members of the Friendship Force of NM Club (part of Friendship Force International based in Atlanta) where they hosted FFI visitors from Brazil, Canada (2), Chili, Germany (2) and Ghana for a week each. They also visited FFI clubs for a week each in Australia (3), Big Canoe in GA, Dallas, Nepal and New Zealand (2).

While maintaining her career as a violinist, she managed to have and raise four children: Jo Ellen FARRIS, Vivian Kathleen ROSSO, Beverly Farris WILLIAMS and Marshall Edward FARRIS. All four children were born in Glen Cove, Long Island, NY. Since John's job often required long hours and a lot of domestic and international travel, she often had to do all of the needed parenting duties as well as arranging to get the repairs done to their homes.

Jo Margaret was creative and enjoyed cooking and gardening, especially the rock garden at the Summit Court house in Oyster Bay. For years she sewed school clothes and holiday outfits for all 4 children. Halloween was a fun time. Jo Margaret had great costume ideas and made most of the children's costumes from thrift store finds, cardboard, etc. At the door she would greet trick or treaters in costume with spooky music and at times bowls of wet, cold spaghetti that she would call "worms". Jo Margaret also created birthday themes for all the children's parties including Mexican Eggs filled with confetti (cascarones), Treasure Hunts including invitations and maps that she made to look like ancient artifacts leading to a small trunk filled with goodies. Neighborhood children were invited over to make Christmas ornaments, decorate cookies, color Easter eggs, etc. She often prepared wonderful dinners on short notice when John brought his business guests to their home. She was a gracious hostess.

Jo Margaret and John are the proud grandparents of nine grandchildren:

Mark WILLIAMS, Rose WILLIAMS, Rachel Rosso ROMAN, Randy ROSSO, Keith WILLIAMS, Joshua FARRIS, Lilia JoMargaret FARRIS, Brad WILLIAMS and Johnny ROSSO.

She was a member of the Albuquerque First Presbyterian Church where she often played solos and enjoyed the pipe organ preludes and postludes as well as the adult Sunday school classes. She was an ordained Deacon. She and John often attended and enjoyed the classes for seniors offered by UNM OSHER Continuing Education and OASIS.

She was a voracious reader (mysteries and history) and was active in an AAUW as well as her Church book club. She loved the NY Times Cross Word and other word puzzles. Because of her prowess at the word game Scrabble, she was "approved" to join the Farris family by John's mother, Rose Ellen Gould FARRIS, a former English Teacher at the U of Texas.

Through "Futures for Children" (which unfortunately closed), Jo Margaret and John still sponsor a student, Timothy Romero, at Jemez Pueblo and attended as many of their public ceremonies and feasts as their busy schedule permitted.

She was a member of the American Federation of Musicians - Locals 802 and 618, The American String Teachers Association, Suzuki Association of America (where she attended many workshops), and Chamber Music America. And mentioned above, also: AAUW, ACMP and the Albuquerque First Presbyterian Church.

In lieu of flowers, please give to any of the organizations mentioned above or to one or both of these local organizations "In Memory of Jo Margaret Gore Farris":

Friends of Music at PO Box 37213, Albuquerque, NM 87176.

Kurt Frederick Memorial Music Fellowship #604490 at the UNM Foundation at 505-277-4503.