JoeAnn Favors, Kansas City, Kansas, mother who loved the finer things in life, dies at 84

JoeAnn Favors had a keen appreciation for the finer things in life.

In the Kansas City, Kansas, home she painstakingly made, where she raised her only child, Debra Gatson, Favors furnished rooms with the French provincial furniture of her liking, a style synonymous with detailed woodworking, plush cushioning and a European artistic flair. She draped every inch of her couches and chairs in plastic covers, Gatson recalled. They had to maintain their immaculate condition.

Her love of the fancy and the pristine extended to her wardrobe, which she carefully cultivated over the years, creating ensembles of silky fabrics paired with high-end hats, shoes and purses. The colors she wore matched, every time, whether she was going to a special event or an everyday meeting, Gatson said.

This affection for looking good continued into her later years, when the 80-something would walk into Kansas City’s Greater Pentocostal Church on Sunday mornings with comfortable flats on her feet, switching into more stylish high-heels the moment she sat down.

No one could diminish the confidence she felt in a spiffy outfit. Once she put everything on, “She thought she was Beyoncé,” Gatson said during a phone interview.

But as much as Favors loved spoiling herself, she could get especially carried away when purchasing something for a loved one.

“She made sure that everybody had what they needed,” Gatson said. “She was the one that everybody came to for money or to get out of trouble.”

Favors, who gave only the best to her daughter, her family and her friends all while making a modest income on her own, died July 2 following a gradual decline in her health, family said. She was 84.

A giving heart

The mother, grandmother and great-grandmother had a long history of high blood pressure, and Gatson had taken her to the hospital in early June because of problems related to blood clots. Still, her daughter was left in shock when she learned the news of her passing, knowing in the back of her head it would come someday but not this soon.

Her mother had always been a giver, savoring the chance to gift her family items and watch their surprised reactions. She gave Gatson’s son, Damon Byers, the $5,000 he needed to take flying lessons. She once bailed her uncle out of a jam with another generous sum and, of course, showered her daughter with heaps of clothes and her first car when she was in high school.

Gatson candidly admitted, however, her mother could have a dual personality, shifting between “sweet as pie” to angry and demanding, holding everyone around her up to the high standards she set for herself. Her behavior was part of what led to their strained relationship years later, Gatson said.

At the same time, she said, she knows her mom truly had “a giving heart.”

“She liked to help other people,” Gatson said. “I think I contracted that from her.”

‘Take a penny and make it into $1,000’

Born on October 14, 1937, Favors grew up one of nine siblings, and had a reputation with her brothers and sisters of always getting her way, her daughter said. She graduated from Sumner High School before going into the workforce and starting a family.

In 1958, she married her husband, Jessie Jones, and they had their one daughter. Though the relationship later ended in divorce, once Gatson graduated from high school, they made a loving home and did their best to give their child everything she wanted.

Favors was employed for several years as a laborer at the Sunflower Ammunition Plant and four at the Puritan-Bennett Corporation, family said in an obituary on the Thatcher’s Funeral Home website. Gatson remembers her working at the Prairie Village Washerette — a laundromat — when she was a girl.

She married the Rev. Adolph Favors later in her life.

Even with the long hours she put in, she had a standing appointment every Saturday to go shopping with Gatson, and cherished the moments when she found something great and urged her to try it on. She was great with finances, able to “take a penny and make it into $1,000,” her daughter said. It never occurred to her as a child they were actually poor.

There was one childhood birthday, she said, where her mother told her she could choose one of two things as a present: A trip to Disneyland, or a piano just for her.

Her thought process, she said, was the famed magical kingdom wasn’t going anywhere and she could go whenever. She picked the piano.

She never learned to play it, only ever using it a handful of times, Gatson said.

She wants to learn now.

“That’s my goal right now, to at least play one song before I die,” she said. “For her.”

Missing everything

Gatson hadn’t seen her mother much in the past few years, minus the trip to the hospital before she died, and they weren’t speaking over the phone. She knew Favors had battled a lot in her life — overcoming an addiction to alcohol, for one, and committing herself to a sober life dedicated to the church. But there was still a distance between them.

When Gatson was informed her mother had died, she felt many emotions at once, from anger to sadness to a slight feeling of relief she wasn’t suffering anymore.

Gatson has found herself missing everything about her, even the bad moments.

“My daughter said, ‘Mom, how can you miss the bad things?’” she said. “Well, I do.”

Favors is survived by her daughter, Gatson; sister, Barbara Bess; grandchildren, Damon, Andrea, Khalin, Bryce, Ryan, Chas and Cruz; one great-grandchild; and many other relatives.